PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 1 1 



He was one of the most charitable and unselfish men I 

 ever met, and for many years he was in a chronic state of 

 impecuniosity because he could never resist an appeal for 

 help, while botanical expenses which might have been a 

 charge against the public funds, were paid out of his own 

 pocket to a large amount. So he told me many a time. 

 He was a bachelor, and his personal expenditure was of the 

 most modest description, everything went to science and 

 charity. 



On two occasions he thought about getting married. 

 Once things went as far as getting the wedding-presents, 

 and one of them, a clock, is in the Melbourne herbarium 

 to this day. I think it was well that the wedding never 

 came off. He could not possibly have found time for his 

 wife's company, and it would not have been fair to put her 

 into competition with, say, a new Eucalypt. 



Some of his idiosyncrasies were most amusing. If he 

 barked, which he did now and then, there was no bite. He 

 was the quaintest and most picturesque figure I have ever 

 known amongst Australian scientific men. — R.I. P. 



4. Our local death-roll. — The hand of death has fallen 

 heavilly upon our old members, we having lost no fewer 

 than five, J. S. Chard, elected 1879; J. Percy Josephson, 

 elected 1876; Houlton H. Voss, elected 1876; Norman 

 Selfe, elected, 1877; A. B. Weigall, elected 1867. 



John Sofala Chard was born in Sydney 16th October, 

 1853, and died at Manly, near Sydney, 1st July last. He 

 joined the Survey Department in April 1867 as a volunteer 

 draftsman, being promoted in 1869 to the position of field 

 assistant, when he was attached to the party of Mr. 

 Edward Twynam, then District Surveyor of Goulburn, but 

 later Chief Surveyor of the Colony. Having passed with 

 exceptional success the examination for license to survey, 



