Ivi Presidenf s Address. \_Xvig. 28, 



think this might be met by a reduction in the subscription for members 

 residing more than twenty miles from Cape Town, and I intend to 

 bring a motion to this effect before the Council ; if it is carried I 

 hope it will result in a large increase of our numbers. 



But J ask the members we have to do more than they have done 

 in the way of providing food for the Society's meetings. I find 

 that out of our present members 22 per cent, have contributed 

 papers of some length during the last four years, and this is 

 perhaps as high an average as can be expected ; but that, including^ 

 these papers, only 27 per cent, have contributed anything, paper or 

 exhibit, to our meetings. This is a very low proportion, and I hope 

 that members will help us to remove this reproach by bringing more 

 exhibits and by short notes on any point that seems to them worthy 

 of notice. There appears to be a feeling that for a paper to be 

 accepted by the Philosophical Society it ought to occupy at least 

 half-an-hour in reading, but this is an utter mistake. A note of half- 

 a-dozen lines on some interesting phenomenon would be just as 

 welcome and would probably give rise to a valuable discussion. 



I should have been glad to bring before you a review of the pro- 

 gress of science in other parts of the world during this time, but am 

 not unfortunately equal to the task ; so that I must ask your indulgence 

 if I act up to the old motto ne sutor ultra crepidam and give you 

 some account of the progress in that branch of science with which I 

 am more particularly acquainted. 



ASTRONOMY. 



The most striking and important advance during the last year or 

 two in this department is the successful application of photography to 

 astronomical measurements. Astronomical 'pictures had been taken 

 many years ago, e.g.^ of the moon, planets and bright nebulae, but it 

 has only quite recently been shown that a photographic plate exposed 

 for a few minutes will furnish as good a position of a particular star 

 with reference to the surrounding stars as a single observation with a 

 large Transit-circle. Of course there are many precautious to be- 

 taken in the exposure of a plate to secure this degree of accuracy and 

 laborious researches to be executed on each plate to arrive at the 

 results, but the certainty that this accuracy can ce attained will, 

 cause a revolution in meridian observing. The meridian circle will be- 

 no longer devoted to the observation of vast numbers of stars as has.- 



