ANNIVEKSARY ADDRESS. 33 



Botanic Gardens. — The Director of the Botanic Gardens 

 informs me that during the past year he has made special efforts 

 to improve the herbarium. He has received several thousand 

 species by exchange with botanical establishments throughout the 

 world, and also as the result of collecting tours made by his 

 assistants and himself. The phanerogams are now, in spite of recent 

 large acquisitions, fairly in order, and the same may be said of 

 ferns. As regards the remainder of the cryptogams, especially 

 fungi, mosses, lichens and algae, the collection at present comprises 

 over two thousand named species, and it is hoped that, in a very 

 few years, the herbarium of cryptogams will approach in value 

 that of the phanerogams. Mr. Maiden states that the present 

 condition of the herbarium is largely owing to the self-denying 

 labours of his assistants, Messrs. Betche, Forsyth, Camfield and 

 Grant. 



Australian Museum. — A much desired extension of the Museum 

 premises took place by the building of new and commodious work- 

 shops, so constructed as to form a part of one of the future wings 

 of the Museum. In addition a new and separate house was 

 erected for the reception of the bulk spirit collection, whereby the 

 danger from fire has been very much reduced. The publication 

 of the Memoir on the Atoll of Funafuti has steadily progressed. 

 Six parts have appeared during the past year, leaving only two 

 more parts to complete it. The collections have been enriched by 

 the acquisition of a fine meteorite from near Mount Stirling, West 

 Australia, weighing a little over two hundred pounds, and a 

 magnificent set of polished slabs representing the commercial 

 marbles of New South Wales, prepared by Mr. W. Roberts, Clerk 

 of Works, Bathurst. 



Thetis Trawling Cruise. — A question which has been before 

 the minds of those interested in our fisheries has had some 

 attention bestowed upon it lately. At the instance of Mr. F. 

 Farnell, M.P., the Government s.s. Thetis was lent for the purpose 

 of testing the existence of the deep sea fishing grounds which had 

 been emphatically asserted by some and equally emphatically 



C— May 4, 1898. 



