246 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF AUSTRALIA. 



merit of geography, in which I claim to take a deep interest, but it 

 seemed to me undesirable to retraverse fields already occupied by my 

 predecessors. At one time a presidential address was supposed to deal 

 more or less with the work of the society during the preceding year, 

 pointing out at the same time what had been done in its particular 

 department in other parts of the world, with a plan for future opera- 

 tions. In some societies the practice is still followed out, but in my 

 own opinion the wisdom of such a custom is open to doubt, and it is 

 well to consider whether it is not better to deal with some local or spe- 

 cial subject, leaving the operations of the society to be summarized in 

 the report of the council, and the departmental work in other parts of 

 the world to the special treatment of the older and larger societies. 

 In this way the provincial bodies would act as tenders or feeders to the 

 parent societies in Great Britain and the continent of Europe, supply- 

 ing them with trustworthy local material for the department of national 

 or universal geography. Such a recognized plan of action would doubt- 

 less result in universal federation of workers in the field of geograph- 

 ical science. It would also lead to a more thorough and exhaustive 

 treatment of the various departmental subjects than they at present 

 receive, and would result in uniformly organized, concerted, and sys- 

 tematic action in the field of labor. 



On this occasion I shall endeavor to follow in the footsteps of one of 

 my distinguished predecessors, Sir S. W. Griffith, who, in his very 

 learned and interesting presidential address to this society in 1891, 

 dealt with the "Political Geography of Australia." 



To the native born, and to those whose homes and family ties natur- 

 ally bind us all together in a common bond of union under the Southern 

 Cross and the other beautiful constellations of the southern sky, there 

 is no other country on the face of the earth so dearly beloved as Aus- 

 tralia. None is certainly more important, and it is not to our credit as 

 a people that while our school children are crammed with what after 

 all is only a superficial and inadequate knowledge of all other parts of 

 the world, little attention is given to our own country, to our industries, 

 or to our natural and artificial resources. To the credit, be it said, of 

 a public- spirited journal the subject of our national industries has 

 recently received special treatment, and it is hoped the Courier, to 

 which I particularly refer, will devote equal time and attention to other 

 phases of our partially or wholly undeveloped resources. The Physical 

 Geography of Australia demands fuller treatment than it has hitherto 

 received by any society of this kind, for while we are always ready and 

 anxious to extend our investigations over wide and remote fields the 

 needs of our own country are too often overlooked. It is no doubt true 

 that several parts of the interior of Australia are either wholly unknown 

 or but imperfectly known. Enormous tracts of sterile and waterless 

 country have baffled the efforts of many travelers to investigate the 

 inland regions, and it is only quite recently that several important dis- 



