xiv President's Address 



few self-registering niagnetographs at work in different 

 parts of the world, and our Observatory, which possesses one 

 of these special instruments, has been requested to co-operate 

 by furnishing fac-similes of the photographic curves obtained 

 during disturbed periods. This is a very important step in the 

 right direction, for a considerable amount of investigation is 

 carried on at national observatories, which has a general as 

 well as a local value, and the correlation of the results by 

 some competent central committee is the only practical way 

 by which to arrive at a solution of the great cosmical pro- 

 blems to which the investigations themselves pertain. 

 Terrestrial magnetism has its local significance, but the 

 broad question of the laws by which it is governed is one 

 that can only be adequately dealt with by some such method 

 as that now proposed. The great telescope continues to 

 work well, and although a great deal of time is taken up by 

 visitors, the systematic revision of the southern nebulae is 

 going on steadily and satisfactorily. 



Baron von Mueller, our fellow-member, who so ably repre- 

 sents our national botanical department, has assiduously 

 continued his researches amongst the flora of Australia, and 

 although I regret to say that he has been unable, through 

 lack of means, to extend his investigations into many of 

 the collateral branches of the science, he is mindful of the 

 importance in a young country like ours of a practical as 

 well as of a purely scientific outcome of his work, and while 

 he is steadily working towards a complete flora of the great 

 Australian continent, investigations concerning new and 

 useful vegetable products, and the selection of plants for 

 industrial culture and naturalisation, have been by no means 

 overlooked. Taking the statistics furnished by the Govern- 

 ment botanist, there are, up to the present time, already 

 recorded as pertaining to the flora of Australia about 7000 

 dicotyledonous, 1G00 monocotyledonous, and 1900 acotyle- 

 donous species; and these, especially the latter, will doubt- 

 less be largely augmented by considerable additions to the 



