Report of the Royal Society of Tasmania for the year, 1885.

Includes list of members of council and Fellows of the Society, the obituary of John Swan.<br> Minutes of the Annual General Meeting of the Royal Society of Tasmania, held at the Museum on Friday, February 5th, 1886, Mr. R. A. Bastow, F.L.S., remarked, with the permission of the Chairman, he intended early in the session to read a Paper " On the Science of Sanitation," illustrated by diagrams.<br>He went on to remark that in this colony we have a Public Health Act, as good an Act as could possibly be framed for the conservation of the health of the community, and now that the Parliament had done their part so well it remains for the community to carry out the Act in all its requirements.<br>As yet it appears as though the science of sanitation are totally unknown in the colony except by some few gentlemen who have made the science a study, and unless the eyes of the public are opened, the dangers existing in their very homes, in the air they breathe, in the food they eat, in the rooms they sleep in, and everywhere outside their homes, in the drains and accumulations of filth visible at all times in many of our streets, the annual death rate will still continue over 24 per 1000, instead of 12 per 1000, for the registration district of Hobart.<br>It must be a subject for congratulation to the Fellows that the papers read during the session of 1885 were not only of great variety, but of special interest and importance.<br>The monthly meetings were all numerously attended, and on several occasions many ladies were present. Twenty six papers were presented. Includes report on additions to the library, finances, the museum and list of donors to the museum, the Queens Domain, plants introduced to the Royal Society’s gardens during the year and summary of meteorological observations.