IG 
INAUGUitAL ADDRESS. 
iiig is among those who eiifleavorerl to rouse a spirit for beautifying 
our landscapes as well as our immediate surroundings. Biologists, 
particularly, could adfl to the charms of vernal vegetation any\vhere 
by transferring f<jr naturalisation from land to land, at all events, 
the minutest of dowers, alway.s innocent, such a.s here the neatest 
Candolleas ; the snatching up and forwarding of a few grains of 
seeds, and their being merely scattered on adequate soil in shnilai- 
climatic regions, would suffice. Peculiarity in the constitution of 
the fruit enabled the Cocos-palm to transmigrate on its own accord 
from its home in the Western Hemisphere to the shores of the 
Eastern ; it requires other means for the French-bean and the 
gourds to reacb the East ; hjr the last 300 years they' were 
consumed as a fretjuent table-food of supposed eastern origin ; 
but now only has it been shown, by nrchaeologic researches hito 
the Inca.s-times, that they belong as indigenous to the western 
worhl exclusively. Thi.s exemplities how objects of :dmo.st daily' 
concerns can still afl'ord means for oi'iginal inquiry for almu.st 
indetinite pei’iods. The muniticence of the learned President of 
the section for Literature and Fine Arts has fostered also this 
system of ti'anslooation, as .shown last year by additional very 
copions distribution of stilnion-ova through Tasmanian streams. 
Ca.ssino for 1888 recorded 13,500 scientists as holding recog- 
nised positions in various countries ; but the respective numbers 
given seem adequate only for Hortli America — thu.s far, nearly 
5,000 names being given. This, however, shows the extra- 
ordinary vividity displayed there for original inventive work, 
and that very much of a pi actical kind. 
Young Australia has placed hitherto ah’eady through it.s 
science-.societies about 130 volumes into the libraries of the 
world, and that mostly during the latter half of the century ; 
a freshness pervade.s these literary efforts, commensurate with the 
amjiler origmality of sources m new countries. An enlightened 
journalistic press accords here no less than elsewhere its generous 
support to .science. For the world as .a whole mental faculty is 
displayed, never without a scientific touch, in hundreds of 
thousands of journals, in uncountable periodicals, and in an 
endless number of spacious volumes. How is a Hew to be 
maintained over this ever-increasing flood of literature, if even 
for each of us in one or few directions only ? At all events, in 
greater works a resume of their .salient contents should never be 
wanting, some summing up of the main-substance, some abridged 
reference to novel elucidations. The idea of constructing an 
universal linguistic medium of communication, at tir.st promul- 
gated by Leibnitz in 1666, has occupied the minds of many of the 
learned ever since. Like numerical figures, chemical formulas 
and musical notes, such a language is to be readable by each 
nation in its own words, and the name Pasigraphy has been 
chosen for it. Volapuk aftbrds steps towards accomplishing this. 
