8 ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 



predictions based on geological and meteorological observations 

 to the great advance and the welfare of the Colonies, and of 

 the pastoral industry in particular." 



The discovery, by Mr. W. B. Spencer, of a median eye in the 

 back of the head of the Hatteria lizard, has been regarded by the 

 students of Morphology as being very remarkable and significant 

 in relation to the pineal gland. The wonderful experiments of 

 the celebrated French chemist, M. Pasteur, in the prevention of 

 hydrophobia, continued throughout the year, have attracted the 

 greatest attention, and although the scientific world still withholds 

 its unreserved assent, there is evidently a growing conviction that 

 the final results may confirm the predictions so cautiously and 

 philosophically put forward by M. Pasteur. It may be remembered 

 that this Society conferred on itself the distinction of electing 

 M. Pasteur to its foreign membership in 1883. In Chemistry 

 the event which perhaps excited the greatest interest among the 

 scientific public, was the address of that patient Chemist, Mr. W. 

 Crookes, delivered at the Meeting of the British Association, 

 in which he endeavoured to propound a theory of the formation of 

 the elements, and at all events offered some valuable spectroscopic 

 results. The search for new elements by means of the spectroscope 

 provided him with material for several important papers. 



Julius Thomsens' concluding volume on his Thermo-chemical 

 experiments has added much new matter to the already voluminous 

 data referring to this subject, and must certainly be regarded as 

 an important chemical event. The determination of the Vapour 

 Density of Zinc, by V. Meyer and Mensching, has shewn that 

 the vapour is " monatomic," and is in every way noteworthy 

 owing to the extreme difficulty of the experimental problem. 

 In Organic Chemistry we have a great discovery by Ladenburg, 

 viz., the production of an optically active alkaloid " Conine," 

 identical with that found in nature, which is thus known to be 

 " a-propyl-piperidine." An alkaloid has been obtained by Brieger 

 from liquids used to cultivate a certain Bacillus, and this alkaloid 



