for the year 1880. xvii 



with this great optical aid. The Medical Society has also 

 been increasing in strength ; its meetings have been more 

 than fully occupied with valuable contributions on'numerous 

 points of medical and surgical science, and its Transactions, 

 under the name of the Australian Medical Journal, now 

 ^holds an important place in medical literature. The Pharma- 

 ceutical Societ}^, also, I am glad to say, is prosperous and 

 progressing. The Pharmacy Act, which has been secured 

 by, and is in a great measure administered under, the 

 auspices of the society, is one of considerable importance to 

 the public, inasmuch as it provides for the proper education 

 and training" of all who engage in the dispensing or sale of 

 medicines or drugs, and so removes the danger that so often 

 results from ignorance or the lack of proper training, 

 which is as essential in practical pharmacy as it is in 

 medicine. 



Passing now beyond our own limited sphere, and making 

 a hasty survey along the ever-extending boundaries of 

 physical and chemical science, our attention is arrested by 

 some interesting examples which fairly illustrate the direc- 

 tion of modern thought and research in these branches of 

 knowledge. The physicist, armed with the prism, the 

 photographic camera, and other optical aids, and made 

 strong with knowledge of the laws of matter and pro- 

 perties of light, electricity _, and heat, obtained in the 

 observatory and laboratory, now grapples with questions 

 which but a few years ago would have been esteemed 

 beyond human reach ; and he is able to apply his scale and 

 balance to heavenly bodies, millions of miles away, with a 

 certainty of result scarcely inferior to that with which he 

 investigates matter in his immediate vicinity. As an illus- 

 tration, I may cite the suggestion by Professor Wiedemann, 

 at a recent meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society, of a 

 method for determining the pressures existing on the sun's 

 surface. His proposed method is based upon the relations 

 and behaviour of light with regard to the molecular motion 



