VI. S. H. BARRACLOUGH. 



assume that the unusual course of re-electing the chairman 

 for a further term of service was on account of any special 

 merits of the holder of the office, still I cannot but be dis- 

 tinctly conscious of the honour you did me and of the cordial 

 good feeling which prompted my re-election. 



It is now two years since the Section decided to suspend 

 its regular monthly meetings, and to try and concentrate 

 the papers in two or three special sessions during the year. 

 It must be confessed that it is still open to question whether 

 the scheme has been a successful one or not. In some 

 respects it undoubtedly has ; the session dealing with Water 

 Conservation and Irrigation excited a great deal of interest 

 amongst members of the Society and others, and the fact 

 of the extra copies of the papers read at that session hav- 

 ing all been disposed of, some to distant parts of the world, 

 makes it apparent that our discussion of the question was 

 considered to be of value. We have this year to decide 

 whether it will be better to continue the sessional idea, or 

 to revert to regular monthly meetings. Probably no alter- 

 ation in the method of holding meetings will entirely get 

 rid of the difficulty of small audiences which at times besets 

 our Society, and which to a greater or less degree is appar- 

 ently felt by all other technical and scientific bodies in 

 Australia. The real difficulty consists in the number of 

 societies as compared with the limited number of citizens 

 who take any direct interest in scientific and technical 

 matters. Through the kindness of the secretaries of the 

 various societies, I quote the following figures, giving the 

 approximate membership of the institution and the average 

 attendance at meetings in each case. 



Mem- A PP r o x imate 

 Society. bershin average 



berstop. attendance . 



Royal Society of N. S. Wales 345 35 



„ (Engineering Section)... 100 25 



Linnean Society of N. S. Wales 110 23 



