421 



ABSTRACT OF PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



Royal Society of South Australia 



(Incorporated) 



for 1918-19. 



Ordinary Meeting, November 14, 1918. 



The President (J. C. Verco, M.D., F.R.C.S.) in 

 the chair. 



Nomination. — The Rev. D. T. Whalley as a Fellow. 

 The President made the following appreciative remarks 

 about the late Dr. W. L. ClelancL: — 



"It is only fitting that we should make more than a 

 passing reference to the death during the past month of 

 Dr. W. L. Cleland, who for thirty-seven years was a Fellow 

 of our Society. He was elected a member in 1879, just at 

 the time the Adelaide Philosophical Association was con- 

 verted into the Royal Society of South Australia. In 1882 

 he accepted the very onerous position of Hon. Secretary, 

 which he retained for fifteen years. When we recall that 

 during six of those years he was also Hon. Secretary to the 

 South Australian Branch of the British Medical Association 

 and also to the Medical Benevolent Association of South 

 Australia, one begins to realize what a mass of work he 

 carried out in his quiet, unostentatious way. He only 

 received his deserts when on transferring the Secretariat of 

 the Royal Society to Mr. G. G. Mayo he was granted the 

 highest honour we could confer and was elected President, 

 in which office he served for two years. He fulfilled it with 

 the same assiduity and reliability as in his more humble post, 

 for the Minutes show that on only two occasions during the 

 Presidency was he absent from his official chair. When he 

 retired from tliis he was for two years in succession chosen 

 Vice-President, and after that a member of the Council, a 

 sure sign of his reliability and worth. 



"In 1887 he read a short paper describing the geological 

 features of the country about the head of Lake Gilles, where 

 were some polished rock surfaces. 



"In 1899 his Presidential address dealt with the 

 aboriginals of Australia, while that of 1900 was in extension 



