PRESIDENT’S ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS 
FOR 1864. 
Delivered by Professor McCoy, President, to the Members 
of the Royal Society of Victoria, at the Anniversary 
Dinner held on the loth April, 1864. 
Your Excellency and Gentlemen, 
In accordance with the annual custom of our Society, it 
now becomes my duty, as President for the year, to address 
you on the subject of the progress made by the Royal Society 
during the past year, and also — following the usual custom in 
such cases at home — on the progress in the Colony of all the 
chief branches of knowledge embraced by this Society. 
And first, I must refer to the great loss our Society has 
sustained during the past year in the departure from the 
Colony of his Excellency Sir Henry Barkly, our President 
for so many years, and who, by the great interest he took in 
the Society, the frequency of his presence at our Meetings, 
the eloquent and able addresses which he delivered as 
President at our Annual Dinners and Conversaziones, and by 
the singularly varied and exact knowledge of many branches 
of knowledge which he brought to bear on the discussions 
of the various points of scientific interest which were brought 
forward from time to time, exerted a most powerful and 
beneficial influence not only upon the Royal Society, but 
upon the progress of learning and research in the Colony 
generally. Science and art have lost in him a consistent 
and enlightened friend, ever ready to sacrifice his personal 
convenience, and to freely use his purse, and his position, for 
their advancement. 
a 2 
MUSEUM OF VICTORIA 
26889 
