ANNUAL ADDRESS. 



By Norman Selfe, m. inst. c.e., m.i. Mech. e. 



[Delivered to the Engineering Section of the Royal Society of N.S. Wales, 

 May 17 th, 1S99. .] 



Gentlemen, 



We are opening the Annual Session of this Section of the 

 Royal Society under unusual and rather painful conditions. I 

 cannot, as is customary, begin by thanking the Members for 

 electing me as their Chairman, because I am only occupying this 

 position at the request of the Committee as locum-tenens for Mr. 

 Carleton, your own elected Chairman, whose continued ill-health 

 and inability to be present this evening we must all greatly 

 deplore. Let us anxiously hope he will soon be with us again.' 

 I am afraid I have not the pleasure of a personal acquaintance 

 with Mr. Carleton, and, in thinking over the fact, my memory 

 has gone back to the days when I believe I knew every 

 Engineer in Sydney in the employment of the Government. I 

 well remember, at any rate, the inauguration, forty years ago, of 

 the department of which Mr. Carleton is the head, and the 

 original officers connected with it. Possibly none of you are 

 aware (for I have never seen a record of the fact) that the iron 

 trussing to the spans of the present Glebe Island Bridge (one of 

 the first works of this department) was all made for Pyrmont 

 Bridge, but never used there. The drawings for the cast iron 

 struts — which were cast in Sydney — and the drawings for the 

 tie rods and bridles — which were ordered from England — were 

 made by myself. 



As a memento of those days, I am able (through the courtesy 

 of Mr. Hudson, who purchased all the plans formerly belonging 

 to Messrs. P. N. Russell & Co.) to exhibit the general drawing 

 of the Steam Dredge " Hunter," still working at Newcastle, 

 which was made by me in the year 1859. I think I also made 



