18 president's address. 



bureaucratic point of view, but when it is founded on science it 

 is the right point of view; and the governments of the future 

 will find more and more work of this kind forced upon them." 



We have other practical evidences of an awakening to the 

 recognition of the importance of scientific knowledge and scientific 

 method, which it would be ungrateful and unfair not to cordially 

 recognise. Mr. S. W. Moore, while Secretary for Mines and 

 Agriculture, convened a Conference of the Government Entom- 

 ologists of the five Eastern States to discuss the advisability of 

 common action, and the best measures for dealing with our 

 numerous insect pests; and when the Conference declared that 

 11 It is desirable that a Government Entomologist should be sent 

 to California to investigate internal parasites, especially those 

 of the codling moth," the various Governments combined to send 

 our Mr. Froggatt, unanimously elected by his colleagues, on a 

 wide commission to hunt the world over for parasites to attack 

 the insect pests, especially the fruit flies (Ceratitis, Tephritis, and 

 Trypeta), and to defray all the expenses. 



Again, the Government has authorised a grant of £18,000 for 

 the extension of the South Wing of the Australian Museum, 

 consisting of a basement and two galleries. The basement will 

 be employed to provide additional workshops and an up-to-date 

 crematorium for rejectamenta. The first floor will continue the 

 extensive mammalian and osteological collections. The second 

 floor will be devoted to Man and his work. Further we are glad 

 to record that in 1907 the Trustees were enabled to obtain an 

 increased money grant from the Treasury, so that they were 

 able to give a substantial increase of salary to everyone engaged 

 in the Museum. 



Let us now consider more in detail some of the fields in which 

 scientific knowledge intimately concerns the administration of 

 our country. 



Weather. — The great factors which determine our climate, the 

 presence of the cold Antarctic to the South, our situation in the 

 High Pressure belt in the course of the procession of Anti- 

 cyclones, and in the North in the Trade Wind track, and the 



