To the nucleus of a national museum have been added many valuable contributions. And whilst all these have received a proportionate share of attention, there have not been wanting practical men who have brought special acquirements to bear on subjects of a more limited character;—local in their application, but general in their importance. The engineer, not content to follow blindly the beaten track of his predecessors, has brought to light new and useful facts in architecture, in road works and hydrometry; and while discoursing of abstract principles, which are at once his guide and the result of former application, he has not forgotten that his works are to be valued rather by the measure of their utility than as additions to science.

In reviewing past exertions I would more willingly draw your attention to such of them as have been successful, but if I adopted this course I should ill discharge the task which is allotted to me.

If success has attended those things wherein we had chiefly to rely on our own energies,—for the accomplishment of which there was needed no extraneous aid,—we have failed, and failed Iamentably, when we have had to look for assistance to those who reap a certain benefit—in some cases directly in others indirectly—from the works undertaken by this Society.

It will be in your recollection that in September, 1854, it was proposed to orginise a system of exploration with the hope of discovering and rendering available the mineral wealth of the colony. That system, after being carefully considered by a committee to inquire into its merits, was unanimously adopted at a general meetinom of the Philosophical Society. Its aims, however, being utterly beyond the power of a young society, it was determined to appeal to the Governor and Legislative Council for assistance. The scheme itself was so extensive that it was necessary, in stating its objects to the Government, to Iimit it in some measure to the absolute requirements of the colony.

It may be as well here to repeat the reasons which led the society to believe that had this scheme been undertaken it would have benefited the country at once, and in the manner most needed. More than now our knowledge of the physical character of the province was circumscribed. Efficiently organised exploring parties would have supplied the information in an acceptable form. The discovery of an available coal-field is necessary to our prosperity as a commercial people, and as coal is known to exist here, especially at Cape Patterson and on the Cape Otway coast, this, under proper superintendence, might ere now have been accomplished.

Royal Society of Victoria