30 J. B. CLELAND. 
being brought from overseas. No effort to control these 
seems to be made until they are so firmly established that 
extinction is impossible. Surely some means could be de- 
vised by which a special botanical staff, placed at the dis- 
posal of the Government Botanist, could methodically 
survey likely portions of the State, especially in the neigh- 
bourhood of seaports and along railway lines, to detect the 
early appearance of noxious weeds, and to arrange for their 
elimination at once. If some such scheme is not adopted 
millions more will be wasted in vainly endeavouring to 
remedy what a few hundred pounds expended now could 
with reasonable certainty accomplish. 
IT am indebted to others for the following summaries of 
progress made in Australia in various branches of science 
during the year under review :— 
Work of Australian Mathematicians.—Professor H. S. 
Carslaw, in the University of Sydney, has published two 
papers, one (Proc. London Mathem. Soc.) continuing his 
work on Wave Equation, the other (Amer. J. of Mathem.) 
on the Gibbs’ Phenomenon in Fourier’s Series. His (see- 
ond) paper on Napier’s Logarithms (this Journal, L, 1916, 
p. 180) has appeared also in the Phil. Mag. 
Professor H. J. Priestley, of the University of Queens- 
land, has also given attention to the mathematical theory 
of the diffraction of waves, and has contributed a paper on 
this subject to the London Mathematical Society. He is 
at present engaged in important research on these lines. — 
Dr. C. E. Weatherburn, the first Doctor of Science -in 
Mathematics of the. University of Sydney, and now lec- 
turer in the University of Melbourne, has made several 
contributions to the Phil. Magazwme and the Quarterly 
Journal of Mathematics, continuing the researches which 
won for him the D.Sc. here. 
