Inaugural Address. 11 



to the use of books belonging to tbe Trustees of that institution) 

 by which they can be obtained without risk of loss, and we have 

 no right to lay on the Curator work which it is not his to perform. 

 They should be catalogued and placed where tbey can easily be 

 found. "What would be the compliment of enrolling visitors in a 

 "noruade" institution, with no " locus in quo'" — no spot of earth 

 that it can call its own ? This evil is just as great to ourselves as 

 to others. It would be well if some remedy could be found for 

 it. If, after all, we must patronise some sort of philosophy we 

 had better not select that of Diogenes, even though he had a tub 

 of his own. 



From these remarks respecting our present state and future 

 prospects, we have now to turn our attention to the past. It 

 will be proper to start ab ovo. 



It appears then, that in the year 1821, a company of gentlemen 

 consisting of 



Alexander Berry, Esq. 



Henry Grattan Douglas, Esq., M.D. 



Barron Field, Esq., Judge of the Supreme Court. 



Major Goulburn, Colonial Secretary. 



Patrick Hill, Esq., Colonial Surgeon. 



Captain Irwin. XI. Bengal N.I. 



Captain P.P. King, E.N. 



John Oxley, Esq., Surveyor-General. 



Charles Stargard Ruinker, Esq., Astronomer; and 



Edward Wolstonecraft, Esq., 

 formed themselves into the Philosophical Society of Australasia, 

 under the presidency of His Excellency Sir Thomas Brisbane, 

 K.C.B., E.E.S.L., and E. 



The only survivor of this group is Alexander Berry, Esq., still 

 a member and the patriarch of our Society, and who yet retains, 

 after a long and eventful life, much of the bodily vigour and all 

 the intelligence that characterised him so long ago. It is an in- 

 teresting fact, that, " per varios casus per tot discrimina rerum,'' 

 this Society retains at least one link, to bind the present with 

 the past, and which enables us to connect the scientific zeal of 

 those days with that of our own. 



This early union appears to have partaken rather of the character 

 of a Mutual Eriendly Association, than of that of a more formal 



