ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 23 



Standard Datum. — During the year an important change has 

 been made in the matter of the datum to which all levels taken 

 by the various Government Departments are referred. In many 

 years past a considerable amount of inconvenience and loss of 

 time has been caused by the want of uniformity in this matter, 

 each department having adopted a datum of its own, and in some 

 cases even the different branches of the same departments had 

 different values for the same bench mark. Confusion and trouble 

 naturally followed this want of system, and as the evil became 

 worse as time went on, a conference of the representatives of the 

 various Government Departments was held, and after considerable 

 discussion united action decided upon. Naturally it was agreed 

 that mean sea-level should be the datum to which all levels should 

 be reduced, and a table has been compiled giving the corrections 

 to be applied to each Department's records to comply with this 

 decision. The inscription on the brass plate attached to the 

 bench mark on the northern wall of the Lands Office building has 

 been slightly altered to agree with the value decided upon by the 

 Conference, thus placing within easy reach a standard mark for 

 future reference. In addition to this, the Conference recommended 

 the establishment of automatic tide gauges at the various ports 

 and harbours on the coast, and it is satisfactory to note that the 

 Government have acted on this suggestion, and six tide gauges 

 are shortly to be constructed for this purpose. When the 

 registers are carefully examined and analysed, some most valuable 

 scientific data should be the result. 



Department of Agriculture. — I am indebted for the following 

 to Mr. D. McLachlan, Under Secretary : — 



The Agricultural Department, through its experimental farms 

 and college has done much to advance the producing interests of 

 the colony, and the total area under crop is now just twice what 

 it was when the department was formed in 1891, i.e., an increase 

 under cultivation of nearly 900,000 acres. 



At the Hawkesbury Agricultural College, Richmond, one 

 hundred students are educated in the science and practice of 



