Miscellanea. 
351 
the cottage in the garden, before they enter on this important 
step, which it is, nevertheless, desirable should be accomplished. 
The funds now in the treasurer's hands amount to £52 10s. 6d., 
and a quarter's government allowance is also due, making a total 
of £152 10s. 6d. 
In conclusion, it is necessary to apprise the members and the 
public that it has been deemed advisable to dispense for the 
future with the payment of the entrance fee on admission as a 
member; that the garden is open to the public on Wednesdays 
and Saturdays from two o'clock, p.m., until sunset; and that 
nothing more is required, on admission to the garden, than the 
insertion in a book of the names of all visitors, whether members 
or strangers .—Hobart Town Courier , May 27, 1845. 
[In publishing in the Tasmanian Journal the above “ Report 
of the Royal Society of Van Diemen's Land for Horticulture, 
Botany, and the advancement of Science," we have to express 
our most cordial wishes for its success in the sphere of useful¬ 
ness which it has laid out for itself. Whether so small a commu¬ 
nity as this can efficiently support two scientific societies, having 
similar objects in view, or whether the “ Royal Society of Van 
Diemen's Land," with its patronage from the Queen, grant of 
land, and allowance of £400 per annum from the funds of the 
colony, may not eventually supersede and swamp the self-support¬ 
ing and unostentatious 4 ‘Tasmanian Society," which publishes 
the present journal (now extended to its tenth number), and has 
pursued the even tenor of its way for the past seven years, must 
remain for the present unanswered. We are too sincerely at¬ 
tached to the cause of science to regret that there are an encreased 
number of labourers in the wide field of nature, to gather its 
flowers; and we can only hope that by the joint exertions of the 
two societies the natural-history productions, and resources of 
these colonies, and those of Tasmania in particular, will ere long 
be thoroughly investigated, described and published.— Ed. Tas- 
manian Journal.\ 
INTERIOR OF AUSTRALIA. 
(From the annual Address oj It. T. Murchison , Esq., President of 
the Royal Geographical Society.) 
Notwithstanding the arduous travels of so many of our coun¬ 
trymen, many of whose labours are recorded in our volumes, or 
in the general literature of our country, there is no part of the 
