Nov. 



8.] 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



467 



THE AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATION FOR 

 THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE. 



The President's Address. 



THE inaugural meeting of the Australian Association for 

 the Advancement of Science was held in the Great Hall of 

 the Sydney University on Aug. 28th. 



After a few opening remarks from Lord Carrington, who presided, 

 Mr. H. C. Russell delivered the presidential address. After 

 referring at some length to the history of the British Association, he 

 said: At the very time that Sir David Brews :er was using his pen 

 and his influence to stir up the scientific men of England to greater 

 effort in the cause of science, and to the formation of the British 

 Association for the Advancement of Science, the British Govern- 

 ment were sending to Sydney one of the most energetic scientific 

 men that ever set foot upon Australian soil, with a view of keeping 

 alive the dying embers of the first attempt to plant science in this 

 part of the world. And I think it most fitting that, at this 

 first meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science, we should remember that first effort to pro- 

 mote science in a country so remote from the homes of science. 

 It is difficult now to form any idea of the condition of society 

 in Australia when Sir Thomas Brisbane landed, and nothing 

 but the habit of disregarding difficulties, which a long military ex- 

 perience had taught him, would have made it possible in his mind 

 to form a scientific society under such circumstances. But he had 

 been so accustomed to go into strange places and make his own sur- 

 roundings that it appeared to him possible to do the same here. He 

 landed in the end of November, entered upon his official duties on 

 December 1st, 1821, and by January 2nd following he had found out 

 the only scientific men in the colony, formed them into the Philo- 

 sophical Society of Australia, and had the first paper read. He 

 never seems to have anticipated any difficulty in managing this hand- 

 ful of civilians, who, however, soon got beyond his control. His 

 own enthusiasm for science was very remarkable. In the midst of 

 the harassing marches and all the perils of the great Continental war 

 in which he bore a part, even when he had to sleep six nights in the 

 snow with nothing but his overcoat to cover him, and found himself 

 frozen to the ground each morning, and once with 900 men frozen 

 to death around him, he always had his astronomical instruments in 

 his baggage, and brought them into use whenever there was half a 

 chance. It was this intense love for science, coupled with his mili- 

 tary ideas, which made him so anxious to get all the scientific men 

 around him in a duly organised society, each to do his duty rigidly 

 or suffer the consequences. But with all his enthusiasm he soon 

 found that a small army of scientific workers was not so manageable 

 as the armies he had been accustomed to. The members of this 

 first Australian society, according to Judge Field, were Alexander 

 Berry, Henry Grattan Douglas, M.D., Baron Field (fudge), Major 

 Goulburn (Colonial Secretary), Captain Irwin (Bengal N. I.), 

 Captain P. P. King, John Oxley (Surveyor-General), Charles 

 Stargard Rumker (astronomer), Edward Wolstencroft, his Excel- 

 lency Sir Thomas Brisbane, K. C.B., F.R.S. (President). I find no 

 record of the rules of this society, excepting one, and that was if a 

 member failed to read a paper when his turn came he forfeited ^10. 

 They met at each other's houses in turn, and the only refreshment 

 allowed was a cup of coffee and a biscuit. It seems that the society was 

 more of a mutual friendly association or scientific club than a formal 

 society. At that time there was no public library, and but one bookseller 

 for the whole of Australia, so the members catalogued their books and 

 lent them to members. With such a strong incentive to write 

 papers, there can be no doubt that meetings seldom lapsed for want 

 of a paper, but they were not published in proceedings, and the 

 only existing record is given by Judge Field, who published four of 

 them in his "Geographical Memoirs" — (1) "On the Aborigines 

 of New Holland and Van Diemen's Land," read January 2nd, 1882. 

 (2) "On the Geology of Part of the Coast of New South Wales, 

 from Hunter River to the Clyde," read in the same year by 

 Alexander Berry. (3) " On the Astronomy of the Southern Hemis- 

 phere," by Dr. Rumker, read March 13th, 1822. (4) " On the 

 Maritime Geography of Australia," by Captain P. P. King, R.N., 

 read October 2nd, 1S22. Mr. Oxley also read a paper, and Major 

 Goulburn some notes on meteorological observations ; and lastly, 

 Sir Thomas Brisbane communicated meteorological observations. 

 We have evidence, therefore, that seven at least of the twelve were 

 workers. Allan Cunningham (botanist) also contributed papers to 

 Judge Field's memoirs — one describing his travels from Bathurst to 

 Liverpool Plains in 1823, and the second on the botany of the Blue 

 Mountains, as observed in November and December, 1822. Judge 

 Field does not say that these papers were read to the society, so 

 that he may not have been a member, but without doubt all the 

 members did good service in the colony. The society which was 



thus commenced with such flittering promise of usefulness was 

 destined to but a brief period of existence. A question arose 

 between the Government and some of the members as to the value 

 of the dollar — the coin then current —which led to estrangement 

 aud the breaking up of the little band of workers who cultivated 

 science. It appears that this was caused by the decree that the 

 dollar, after the centre had been punched out to make a 

 small coin equal in value to sixpence and known as a " bit," 

 should still pass for its original value, the effect of which 

 was severely felt by bu iness people, because it raised 

 the value of the pound sterling 25 per cent. But the great 

 work which Sir Thomas did in Australia, and what I am disposed to 

 think induced him to accept the position of Governor in the distant 

 colony, was his astronomical work. He had applied before taking 

 the appointment for the consent of the Government to start an ob- 

 servatory when he got to Sydney, but that being lefused, on the 

 ground that they were then making arrangements to establish an 

 observatory at the Cape, and did not think it necessary to have two 

 southern observatories, he at once determined to take the whole cost 

 and responsibility upon himself, purchased a complement of instru- 

 ments, and selected two assistants — Dr. Rumker, as a first-class 

 astronomer and mathematician, and Mr. Dunlop, for his great natural 

 ability and enthusiasm in the pursuit of astronomy. He brought the 

 whole with him, astronomers and instruments landing in Sydney in 

 November. The observatory was at once marked out, within 100 

 yards of Government House, Paramatta, so that he could at any 

 convenient time take a share in the work ; but he could not wait for 

 the building. I find, from the observations, that he observed the 

 sun's solstice in December, and he so hurried on the building that it 

 was completed and ready for use by the end of April. He, with 

 both assistants, worked at high-pressure observing until June 16th, 

 1823, when Mr. Rumker, owing to some difference in opinion be- 

 tween himself and Sir Thomas, left the observatory. Dunlop at 

 this time was not a trained astronomer, but he was a ready learner, 

 and a little training from Sir Thomas made him master of the instru- 

 ments, and then he began that well-known feat of observing which 

 probably has never been equalled. By the end of February, 1826, 

 or in two years and eight months, he made 40,000 observations, and 

 so catalogued 7,385 stars. He then left the observatory, and in sixteen 

 months at his own house in Paramatta he catalogued 621 nebulae and 

 clusters of stars, made drawings of the Milky Way, Nebeculae, major 

 and minor, and many nebute. catalogued and measured 253 double 

 stars. For this he got the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical 

 Society, and afterwards gold medals from the Royal Institute 

 of France and from the King of the Belgians. Meantime Rumker 

 had returned to the observatory, and agreed to carry out a work 

 that was recommended by Sir Humphry Davy as Presi- 

 dent of the Royal Society, viz., the measurement of an arc of the 

 meridian in New South Wales (that arc is not measured yet). Sir 

 Humphry Davy urged that " the measurement of an arc of the 

 meridian in New South Wales would not only be of importance to 

 astronomy in affording data for determining correctly the figure of 

 the earth, a matter of great interest to navigation, but would like- 

 wise be useful in laying the foundation for a correct survey of our 

 colonies in that great and unexplored country " (dated 20th October, 

 1823). Five years later, in 1828, things had made some progress ; 

 Mr. Rumker had agreed to measure the arc, and he ordered the 

 apparatus ; but in January of the following year, 1829, he again 

 left the observatory, and that for the time was an end of the arc of 

 the meridian proposal. Dunlop was reappointed in 1831, and the 

 observatory lingered on without publishing until 1840, when it was 

 dismantled. One cannot look back at the history of that observa- 

 tory without pain, owing to the misfortunes which seemed to upset 

 every effort to make it useful. Sir Thomas was evidently a first- 

 class observer with the sextant, but knew nothing of fixed instru- 

 ments ; hence he bought a lot of instruments second-hand, and 

 wholly unfit for the work they were intended to do. Sir Thomas 

 Brisbane had the command of men and means in abundance, the 

 will and the ability to direct, and so all but the two little ifs was 

 ready for the measurement of an arc of the meridian — a work too 

 long left undone, and one which I hope this association will take 

 up, not with its funds, but with its influence, and urge on to com - 

 pletion. It is a work of the greatest scientific and practical im- 

 portance. The four great colonies interested in this question have 

 each done a part of the work which will be allotted to them when 

 the arc, which must extend from the south to the north of 

 the continent, is finally measured ; and if this association 

 rightly uses its influence the work will be done. At present 

 our surveys are quietly going on upon the assumption that the 

 earth is a regular spheroid, when it is more than probable, 

 from the arrangement of land and water, that it is nothing of the 

 sort at this particular part of its surface. Sir Thomas Brisbane 

 evidently contemplated this when he left England, for he took with 



