An improved system of agriculture shall afford bread to millions then, where now only thousands exist; forests of varied useful trees shall have been transplanted to our shores; the introduction from Flora's and from Fauna's treasures, commenced in our days, supported by our anxious exertions on this spot, may then enliven a much more varied industry; the trout and salmon shall traverse our streams, and game in manifold variety shall roam through the forest, in which the feathered tribes of many zones shall, in their melodies, have added to its primeval charms.

Then the steam-engine shall penetrate far through the continent, and from the point at which its whirling velocity must cease, the ship of the desert shall in safety accomplish the remaining distances from shore to shore, whilst those floating towns, called forth by the enlarged conception of a Brunel, shall bend their staedy course across the ocean.

But not alone in promoting the material welfare of our adopted country shall this Institute have borne its honorable share. A higher ideal of man's destination in the world shall then have shown its influence. Man elevated more and more by science shall have abandoned that egotism by which he but too often retrogrades. No longer shall be lost that skill and that amount of physical and mental energy whcih now are wasted in the field of war. It shall, we trust, have found a higher task in realising grand national projects, dictated by the requirements of a coming time—fulfilling what, perhaps, in past ages, engaged the contemplation of the ancients.

Royal Society of Victoria