22 ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 



The meteorologist has slowly traced the phenomena of storms, 

 and in the daily weather charts published here, and generally in 

 Europe, we can trace the track of the storm with its concurrent 

 weather, including rain, for several days in advance. Rain is no 

 longer the unknown phenomena of which no explanation could be 

 given, it is now known to hold a definite relation to the storms 

 known technically as cyclones, and as their track can be predicted, 

 so can the rain : it is but a step onward to unravel the cause of 

 the cyclones of a particular season, why they follow this cause or 

 that ; in the one case they bring abundance of rain, and in the 

 other drought. And when that is done by the aid of astronomers, 

 the meteorologist's prediction will take a wider range and give us 

 the weather for the season. It requires no words from me to 

 point out the importance of such an advance in a country where 

 wealth and weather are so intimately related. 



With the exception of a few papers by Mr. Chas. Moore, F.L.S., 

 Baron Sir Ferd. von Mueller, and the Rev. J. E. Tenison- Woods, 

 F.L.S.. this Society has contributed but little to Botanical Science 

 notwithstanding the large amount of work that yefc remains to be 

 done. In reference to this subject I will give you some recent 

 observations by the Rev. Dr. W. Woolls, F.L S., who, next to 

 Baron von Mueller has done so much in making known the botany 

 of this Colony, " The progress of Botanical discovery in Australia 

 has been very marked since the beginning of this century. It 

 was in 1805, that the eminent Botanist Robert Brown, took with 

 him to Europe from these shores some 4,000 species of plants. 

 Many of these were new to science, and illustrative of the 

 vegetation peculiar to Australia. After several years of labour 

 in arranging species and genera systematically, he laid the 

 foundation of our Flora in his celebrated ' Prodomus Flora Novse- 

 Hollaii dise et Insular Van Diemen in 1810,' and in so doing showed 

 the superiority of natural to artificial systems. For more than 

 half a century, (during which enterprising travellers and explorers 

 added many species to those previously discovered) much valuable 

 information respecting indigenous plants was scattered through 



