20 president's address. 



broad view taken we can judge by the first sentence of the sub- 

 committee's report : " It is of the first order of importance that 

 the work of the Meteorological Bureau should not be confined to* 

 the accumulation of facts on stereotyped or traditional lines, 

 but should be strengthened and unified by the inclusion of 

 original research." The wisdom of the Federal Government in 

 summoning the Conference to advise leads us to expect that 

 as far, and as soon, as possible the advice will be followed. 

 Another strong evidence of the disposition of the Government 

 was furnished by the handsome contribution of £5,000 made by 

 it to the present Expedition, which has for one of its objects the 

 investigation of the conditions of Antarctic weather. As seen 

 above, Maritime Meteorology was one of the subjects discussed 

 at the Conference, and it was suggested that a branch be estab- 

 lished in the Bureau for collecting data of atmospheric pheno- 

 mena and of temperatures and currents of the seas which lie to 

 East and West and South of us, presumably not omitting the 

 region of " the Roaring Forties and Shrieking Fifties," as Pro- 

 fessor David calls them, writing feelingly from Lat. 61° S. No 

 doubt too one of the bits of work to be undertaken by the 

 Bureau will be the testing of the attractive but alas, evasive 

 theories of the recapitulation of climatic conditions in cycles. 



Minerals. — Generally speaking we must look upon our mineral 

 resources as pure capital. Doubtless the natural agencies which 

 have produced our auriferous reefs and our mineral veins are 

 still in operation, but the time required for reproduction is 

 beyond the time-limit of man. We do not know that anywhere 

 in the world, we do know that nowhere in Australia, are the 

 processes going on which would produce new coal seams. 

 Practically every ounce of gold and every ton of coal we draw 

 from the earth is withdrawn from it finally and leaves us the 

 poorer. The supplies though bountiful are after all finite, and 

 some day there will be an end. Hence it is plain that 

 the land itself is our most important, as our most abiding, 

 possession. That we should use this other lavishly furnished 

 capital to the best advantage is also plain. The most scientific 



