On Magnetic Variations. 29 



afford the approximate correction necessary to reduce the obser- 

 vation to the true magnetic direction. As the results are the 

 averages for each month, they represent the direction for the 

 middle of the month ; the curve for any other time may be 

 obtained by taking a position between the preceding and follow- 

 ing curves, nearer to one or the other in proportion to the num- 

 ber of days it is from them. 



The black line through each of the curves marked " variation " 

 is supposed to represent the mean direction of the magnet for 

 any year, and the curve shows the daily excursions of the needle 

 €ast and west of that line. 



Remarks on the Botany of Lord Howe's Island^ by 

 Charles Moore^ Esq, 



[Read before the Society, 18th October, 1871.] 



In September, 1869, I made a Eeport to the Grovernment on 

 the plants collected by me upon Lord Howe's Island, in the 

 month of Jane previous. In that report the vegetation, as I 

 stated at the time, was necessarily but imperfectly represented, 

 from the fact that I had only the very limited period of 3 days 

 allowed me for investigation, and that up to that time very little 

 indeed was known of the botany of the place, although the island 

 was discovered so long ago as 1788, and since that time has been 

 visited very frequently by those on board ships of war and 

 merchant vessels, as well as having been inhabited by both 

 Europeans ond others since 1833. It is strange, therefore, that 

 with so many advantages as these for making known its Flora, 

 greater results were not produced than have at least been 

 published. So far as I have been able to discover, up to the time 

 of my visit not more than about a dozen plants were enumerated 

 or described in any botanical work as natives of the island ; and 

 yet it is on record that McGrillivray, the naturalist on board 

 H.M.S. Rattlesnake, and Milne, botanical collector on board 

 H.M.S. Herald, visited the island oiEciaily at different times, and 

 made collections of dried specimens, and it is principally from 

 these sources that the very few plants described in the Flora 

 Australiensis were obtained. For these reasons, I was not pre- 

 pared to meet with a vegetation so new and varied in character 

 as to enable me to collect, during my short visit, about 120 

 species, the greater number of which were previously unknown. 



