President's A ddress. 
15 
become a matter of mechanical certainty, and no longer an 
experiment with a great risk of failure. 
Lord Rosse also reports that on comparing his earlier 
drawings with those made at a later period, he has observed 
in some of the nebulae systematic changes of form. If this 
is really so, and there seems no ground for doubting it, what 
a vast field for speculation and research is opened out by 
it; that we should be able to look at other systems, grander 
and more complicated, perhaps, even than our own firma- 
ment, but placed at such a distance that we can see them as 
a whole ; that we should be able to watch in them gradual 
changes, which we can only infer in our own from laborious 
observation of details, is indeed a triumph, the achievement 
of which is worthy of our best efforts. 
In 1862, Sir Henry Barkly forwarded to the Dnke of 
Newcastle a series of resolutions passed by the Board of 
Visitors at Melbourne, requesting the advice of the Royal 
Society of London, and the British Association, as to the 
best form of telescope. 
In his annual address to the Royal Society in December 
that year, General Sabine, the President, after announcing 
this, added : — 
“ I cannot close this brief notice without conoratulatinp- 
O o 
the Society on the prospect thus opened, of accomplishing 
an object of such manifest importance, as to have induced 
the Royal Society and the British Association to solicit 
jointly the aid of Her Majesty’s Government in effecting it ; 
and, however great their disappointment may have been at 
the refusal which they received on that occasion, they will 
if the present hopes are realized, have no reason to repent 
that it has been left to the Colony of Victoria to carry into 
execution an undertaking, which may well be expected to 
hold a high place in the annals of science in all future time.” 
During the early part of 1863, an extended correspon- 
dence was carried on amongst the men most distinguished 
in this department of astronomy in England, for the pur- 
pose of determining the best form of telescope for the 
purpose, considering the especial objects for which it is 
designed. This correspondence has resulted in the offer by 
Mr. Wm. Lassell, of the four -feet reflector, which he erected 
at his own expense, and which he has been using for several 
years at Malta, as a free gift to the Colony of Victoria, on 
