THE AUSTRALASIAN JOURNAL OF PHARMACY. 
215 
cordial congratulations of his old teachers — Professors Redwood, Bentley, and 
Att field — from the society’s school in Bloomsbury- square, who look forward to his 
colonial appointment as a means of maintaining the education and examination 
of pharmacists in Australia in harmony with that in G-reat Britain. 
Me. A. IN’. Peaesojs t , agricultural chemist to the Yictorian Government? 
has been engaged in making a series of experiments to determine some efficient 
and economical method of exterminating the Californian thistle. Mr. Pearson’s 
experiments were made at Leigh Creek, near the border of the Bungaree shire, 
on a piece of ground thickly covered with thistles. The land was divided into 
80 small blocks, and 10 different chemicals were used — sulphuric acid, hydro- 
chloric acid, chloride of lime, chlorine water, common salt, soaic hyposulphite, 
sodic sulphide, caustic soda, and vinegar. The only chemical which killed 
everything, and stopped all growth from the surface, was chloride of lime, by 
means of which all plant life was destroyed to a depth of 18 inches. The 
cost of applying it for three seasons would be about £5 5s. per acre. Mr. 
Pearson points out that there are at present probably not more than 100 acres 
of land in the whole colony which are completely taken up by the Californian 
thistle. 
IVcUt llLtlcs. 
Sydney, 12th June, 1886. 
The thirtj-fifth annual commemoration of the University of Sydney, which took 
place in the Great Hall of the University on Saturday afternoon, 29th May, 
was honoured by the presence of his Excellency the Governor, Lord Carrington, 
the Hon. Lady Carrington, and suite. Various degrees having been conferred 
upon gentlemen who had become entitled to receive them, the scholars and 
prizemen were then presented, and this part of the proceedings was foil -wed 
by the names of benefactors of the University being commemorated. The 
Chancellor (his Honour Sir William M. Manning, LL.D.) next delivered an 
exhaustive address, and this was succeeded by an able address by his Excellency 
the Governor, who, after impressing upon the students that not only their own 
future, but that of the country in a high sense belonged to them, concluded as 
follows: — “You should prepare yourselves to be the depositaries of this power 
when it comes into your hands, so that you may exercise it to your own honour 
for the benefit of your country, and bring back, at the close, the glory of your 
labour, and lay it at the feet of your University.” By the way, I might add 
that among those present were two real girl graduates, who have secured their 
B.A. 
At the usual monthly meeting of the Royal Society, on 2nd June, a paper 
was read on a “Hew Species of Ardisia from Hew Guinea,” by Baron Ferd. 
von Mueller, 3LC.M.G-., F.R.S. Mr. Charles Moore, F.L.S., explained the 
distribution of these plants, how that one species is found in Madagascar, some 
in Queensland and Hew South Wales, and one in Hew Guinea, which was 
obtained when H.M.S. Nelson visited the island, and is the solitary instance of 
an ardisia being found so far to the Horth. Mr. Moore called attention to the 
connection between the fauna and the] flora of Australia and Hew Guinea, 
marsupials being common to both, likewise the eucalypts and the red cedar. 
Sir Joseph Hooker was of the opinion that the cedar that supplies the timber 
of which cigar boxes are made is identical with the Australian and Hew 
Guinea cedar, and Mr. Moore found that the farther Horth the cedar grew the 
more inferior its wood became. Professor Anderson Stuart read two papers on 
the “Poison of the Daphnandra,” by Dr. J. L. Bancroft, F.L.S., late of Hew 
