418 



MISCELLANEA. 



Notes on Occurrences during Summer Recess, 1918=19. 



Fellow Members — I was very pleased when the printers 

 forwarded to me, just before the end of 1918, vol. xlii. of the 

 Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of South 

 Australia (Incorporated). It is not so large a volume as we 

 have been compiling enuring the past four or five years. That 

 we knew would be the case because the Adelaide Museum, 

 the Curators of the different departments of which have sup- 

 plied us with abundant material in bygone years, now 

 publishes its own Records. This is an event which was bound 

 to arise, which is quite in order, and which we welcome. It 

 is satisfactory to find that, notwithstanding this, our volume 

 appears with 340 pages of letterpress and 32 plates, and its 

 contents embrace quite an interesting variety of subjects and 

 are very well illustrated. If we can maintain a yearly output 

 of this quantity and quality — and it should improve as the 

 years go by — we shall justify our existence, retain our present 

 exchange with other societies, and be contributing our quota 

 to the accumulating scientific knowledge of the world. 



May I be allowed now to offer a sheaf of congratulations ? 



First, we have to congratulate Professor Howchin on 

 his very valuable work, "The Geology of South Australia," 

 published towards the end of last year. It supplies what has 

 been a recognized want in Australia, a text book for Aus- 

 tralian students providing, where possible, local examples and 

 illustrations. His own extensive discoveries in the geology and 

 palaeontology of our State first published in our Transactions, 

 and of world-wide notoriety, have furnished no little part of 

 the material for his text book. We congratulate him further 

 on one result of his effort, namely, the recognition of its merit 

 by the Council of the University of Adelaide, which has 

 conferred on him, in addition to his previous title of Lecturer 

 on Geology and Palaeontology, that of Honorary Professor. 

 We shall have the pleasure for the future of addressing him 

 as Professor Howchin. 



We have also to congratulate Dr. Pulleine upon the 

 issue, in collaboration with Mr. Rainbow, of their fine Mono- 

 graph, "The Australian Trapdoor Spiders." As we well know, 

 he has been working at this subject for several years, and 

 their paper in the Records of the Australian Museum, 

 covering more than 80 quarto pages and illustrated by 13 

 plates of beautifully executed photographs, is a valuable 





