42 ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 



development is in its infancy and will be a lasting source of wealth : 

 it would be well therefore in every way to promote it. 



But in addition to gold, New South Wales possesses other rich 

 mineral resources in her large deposits of coal, tin, silver and 

 lead, copper, shale, iron, bismuth, antimony, and sundry 

 minerals including diamonds. Coal stands at the head of our 

 economic minerals, classed according to the value of their annual 

 production. And we may justly give precedence to our immense 

 coal resources, for they are of the greatest commercial and national 

 importance, and in their development lies the success of many 

 industries not only in New South Wales but in the other colonies. 

 This is evident when we consider that of the annual production 

 of coal about 39 per cent, was raised for consumption here, as 

 much as 25 per cent, was exported to foreign ports, and 

 36 per cent, to intercolonial ports, Victoria alone taking 

 22 per cent. It has been estimated that the coal seams now 

 worked, if drawn upon at double the present output will last 

 for 2,500 years. What possibilities therefore of future industrial 

 expansion have we not in the development of this great store of 

 mineral wealth ; and as the stability and progress of commerce 

 depend so largely upon the aid of science, do we not see the wide 

 sphere of usefulness that the Royal Society will occupy in taking 

 its proper share in the work of raising this country to the national 

 position that Nature reveals it is destined to attain. 



Time will not permit me to refer to other sections of work 

 undertaken by the Society ; but in what I have already said it 

 has been my desire to indicate the ever-widening sphere that lies 

 around us for scientific investigation. 



Science is the revealing of Truth in all its aspects. Whether 

 that revelation be the knowledge of a simple mineral, or the great 

 central orb of our planetary system ; the lowest form of vegetable 

 or animal life, or of its highest manifestation in the human mind 

 — a reasoning mind that can bring into subjection natural laws, 

 while it perceives itself to be subject to a higher control — its one 

 aim is Truth. 



