HISTORY OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 219 
‘*Extract from the ‘Sydney Gazette, etc.,’ of Friday, 
March 22, 1822:—His Hxcellency the Governor-in-Chief 
came to town on Tuesday last, and returned to Parramatta 
yesterday. On Wednesday last his Excellency the President 
and members of the Philosophical Society of Australasia, 
made an excursion to the south head of Botany Bay, for 
the purpose of affixing a brazen tablet, with the following 
inscription, against the rock on which Captain Cook and 
Sir Joseph Banks first landed. 
A.D.—MDCCLXX. 
Under the auspices of British science, these shores 
were discovered by James Cook and JosrpH BAnks, 
the Columbus and Mecenas of their time. This spot 
once saw them ardent in the pursuit of knowledge. 
Now, to their memory, this tablet is inscribed, in the 
first year of the Philosophical Society of Australasia. 
Sir THomas BRISBANE, K.C.B. and F.B.S.L. and E., 
(Corresponding Member of the Institute of France), 
President. 
A.D.—MDCCCXXI. 
‘On this interesting occasion the Society had the good 
fortune to be assisted by Captain Gambier and several of 
the officers of His Majesty’s ship ‘Dauntless’; and after 
dining together in a natural arbour on the shore, they all 
repaired to the rocks, against which they saw the tablet 
soldered, about twenty-five feet above the level of the sea, 
and they there drank to the immortal. fame of the illustri- 
ous men whose discoveries they were then met to com- 
memorate.”’ 
So that, although the Society was established in 1821, 
and the plate prepared and dated for that year, circum- 
stances prevented the fixing of the tablet until Wednesday, 
20th March, 1822. 
The work “‘Geographical Memoirs on New South Wales, 
by various hands,” edited by Barron Field, F..s., late Judge 
