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ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 25 
asa Field for Settlement and Colonization.” He died 8th August, 
1878, having been conspicuously associated with the history and 
progress of the Colony for over half a century. 
The other members whom the Society lost by death during 
last year were Hon. Robert Owen, and Messrs. Samuel Bennett, 
J. H. Bradridge, and A. H. C. Macafee. None of these members 
contributed any papers to the Society. 
Connected with these obituary notices, I ought not to omit 
mention of the late Professor Pell, although for three years he had 
ceased to be a member of the Society. He joined the Philosophical 
Society when it was revived, in 1856, and read two or three papers 
to it, one being an interesting investigation into the “ Distribution 
of Profits in Mutual Assurance Societies.” He served on the 
Council of the Royal Society for three years, during two of which 
he was one of the Honorary Secretaries. In 1867 he read a paper 
“On the Rates of Mortality and Expectation of Life in New South 
Wales as compared with England and other countries” ; and he 
afterwards followed this up by a series of valuable articles in the 
Herald. Tn 1871 he read a paper “On the Constitution of Matter,” 
& profound investigation which does not seem to have gained from 
mathematicians and physicists the attention it deserved. 
Mr. Pell was born at Albion, in the State of Illinois, in March, — 
1827. Removed at an early age to England, he was educated at the 
Grammar School, Plymouth, and afterwards at St. John’s College, 
Cambridge. He took his B.A. degree, and went out as Senior 
Wrangler, in 1849. He then became Fellow of his College, and 
remained there for three years as Tutor. In 1852 he was 
appointed the first Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philo- 
sophy in the University of Sydney, where he continued till 1876, 
when increasing ill health made it necessary for him to resign. 
For a number of years he was Consulting Actuary and Actuary 
to two of the principal Life Assurance Offices of Sydney. He was 
frequently employed by Government on commissions of inquiry— _ 
one of the earliest being to investigate the condition of the survey 
and triangulation of the Colony then being carried on by Sir ~ 
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