Journal and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales 2018 Volume 151 Part 2 Numbers 469 & 470 for the encoucagementof studies and investigations in Science Art I itcratuie and Philosophy...” The Royal Society of New South Wales Office Bearers for 2018 Patron His Excellency General The Honourable David Hurley AC DSC (Ret’d) Governor of New South Wales President Prof. Ian Sloan AO FRSN PhD FAA Vice Presidents Em. Prof. David Brynn Hibbert AM FRSN PhD CChem FRSC FRACI Mr John Hardie FRSN BSc (Syd) FGS MACE Ms Judith Wheeldon AM FRSN BS (Wis) MEd (Syd) FACE Hon. Secretary (Ed.) Em. Prof. Robert Marks FRSN MEngSci ResCert PhD (Stan) Hon. Secretary (Gen.) Dr Herma Biittner FRSN Dr.rer.nat Hon. Treasurer Mr Richard Wilmott MRSN Hon. Librarian Dr Ragbir Bhathal FRSN PhD FRAS FSAAS Hon. Web Master A/Prof. Chris Bertram FRSN PhD Councillors Dr Erik W. Aslaksen FRSN MSc (ETH) PhD Dr Mohammad Choucair PhD MRSN Em. Prof. Robert Clancy FRSN PhD FRACP Dr Laurel Dyson BSc(Hons) BA(Hons) PhD MRSN Ms Margaret Gibson MRSN Dr Donald Hector AM FRSN BE(Chem) PhD FIChemE FIEAust FAICD Prof. Nalini Joshi AO FRSN PhD (Prin) FAAS The Hon. Virginia Judge FRSN Prof. E James Kehoe FRSN PhD Hon. Prof. Ian Wilkinson FRSN PhD Southern Highlands Ms Anne Wood FRSN Branch Representative Executive Office The Association Specialists Editorial Board Em. Prof. Robert Marks FRSN MEngSci ResCert MS PhD (Stan) — Hon. Editor Prof. Richard Banati FRSN MD PhD Prof. Michael Burton FRSN MA MMaths (Cantab) PhD (Edinb) FASA FAIP Dr Donald Hector AM FRSN BE(Chem) PhD (Syd) FIChemE FIEAust FAICD Em. Prof. David Brynn Hibbert AM FRSN PhD (Lond) CChem FRSC FRACI Dr Michael Lake BSc (Syd) PhD (Syd) Dr Nick Lomb BSc (Syd) PhD (Syd) FASA FRSA Prof. Timothy Schmidt FRSN BSc (Syd) PhD (Cantab) Website: http://www.royalsoc.org.au Tire Society traces its origin to the Philosophical Society of Australasia founded in Sydney in 1821. Tire Society exists for “the encouragement of studies and investigations in Science Art literature and Philosoplrf'. publishing results of scientific investigations in its Journal and Proceedings', conducting monthly meetings; awarding prizes and medals; and by liaising with other learned societies within Australia and internationally. Membership is open to any person whose application is acceptable to the Society. Subscriptions for the Journal are also accepted, 'lire Society welcomes, from members and non-members, manuscripts of research and renew articles in all branches of science, art, literature and philosophy for publication in the Journal and Proceedings. Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society ofNew South Wales, vol. 151, part 2, 2018, pp. 121-124. ISSN 0035-9173/18/020121-04 Editorial Robert Marks Economics, University of New South Wales, Sydney E-mail: [email protected] AATTho is the only New South Wales-born Royal Society of London’s permission and W Nobel laureate so far? The chem¬ with John Cornforth’s family’s permission, ist, Sir John “Kappa” Cornforth AC FRS this address is here published for the first (1917—2013).1 A graduate of Sydney Uni¬ time. Its publication is a suitable bookend versity, he and his wife, Rita nee Harradence, to John Cornforth’s publishing career: with another chemist, independently won 1851 an eighty-year span, his first and last publica¬ Exhibitions to Oxford in the late ’thirties. tions appear here, in the Journal & Proceed¬ Their first publications were in this Journal ings of the Royal Society of New South Wales.4 some eighty years ago (Harradence & Lions Recently a friend rang me and told me 1936, Cornforth et al. 1937). Cornforth’s about an article in The Monthly of October, 1975 Nobel was awarded “for his work on 2018.1 bought the issue, read the article she the stereochemistry of enzyme-catalyzed had mentioned (on drug policy), and then reactions.”2 noticed another, about one of the founders, Thinking about some way for the Society two hundred years ago, of the Philosophical to remember John Cornforth,3 I wondered Society of Australasia, Judge Barron Field whether we could perhaps publish his last (1786-1846).5 When constructing the on¬ piece. I came upon reference to the talk, line archive of papers presented to the Soci¬ “The Hidden Asymmetry of Life — why the ety and printed in the Journal & Proceedings, hidden asymmetry of most living things is I had come across an 1825 book, published fundamental to life and how it is manifested,” in London, and edited by Barron Field, his given in Canberra at the Australian Academy Geographical Memoirs on New South Wales, of Science on 9 November 1977. Sounded which contained the earliest records of like an interesting piece, and not too techni¬ papers presented in 1821 at meetings of cal, so I tried to find the text. Unsuccessfully. the Philosophical Society. I added the book’s Eventually, at the Royal Society in London I chapters to the on-line archive of the Journal came across an unpublished address, “Adven¬ & Proceedings.6 The Monthly article was on tures with Sugars,” delivered at the Univer¬ Field and his poems, reprinted at the back sity of Sussex on 23 July 1999. With the of his 1825 book.7 1 Patrick White (1912-1990) was born in England of 4 See https://royalsoc.org.au/council-members- Australian parents. section/234-cornforth 2 See https://www.nobelprize.org/search/?s= 5 See http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/field- Cornforth barron-2041 3 Past President Don Hector had approached Profes¬ 6 https://royalsoc.org.au/links-to-papers- since-1856 sor Cornforth to join the Society as an FRSN, but he 7 See http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooksl3/1304421h. declined: age and distance. html#ch22 121 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Marks — Editorial Two thoughts occurred to me: the argues that, for mines both in Victoria9 and approaching two-hundredth anniversary in Malaya, the “tribune” system of contracting of the Society, and our recent determina¬ had produced higher profits. As we would say, tion to widen to the ambit of the Society, the tribune system of contracting shifted the to encompass “Science, Art, Literature and risk from the mine owners to the contracting Philosophy.” I contacted the author, Profes¬ labourers: instead of paying the miners for the sor Justin Clemens at Melbourne University, amount of material they brought up, the trib¬ and The Monthly, and permission to reprint une system paid the miners for the amount of was quickly received. The Journal has never tin they extracted. The incentives faced by the published a paper about Barron Field, and miners had changed, as in the Clunes mine, Clemens’ paper is much more than a review and the mines’ lives would be extended and of his poetry, giving a richer idea of Field’s the owners’ profitability enhanced, if not the time in Sydney, including his role in coin¬ miners’. ing the phrase terra nullius. Clemens is the In 1974 I was a graduate student at erstwhile art critic for The Monthly. Stanford, living in a studio apartment off- This issue includes three submitted papers. campus. In the same building I got to know The first is by Dragovic and Bajpai, on the Wendy Bracewell, daughter of Professor Ron issue of estimating erosion on paths in the Bracewell. I did not take any classes from Royal National Park. This study continues her father, but I knew of him: the Australian our publication of works on the Australian radioastronomer, at a university where there environment. were few if any Australian professors. Christ¬ A year ago we published a report from mas was looming and Wendy was wondering 1885 by the Rev. Julian Tenison-Woods what to give her father: “He’s interested in (2017) on the geology of Malacca written for trees,” she told me (see Bracewell 2005). I the colonial government of the Straits Settle¬ suggested a recent book that I had just bought, ments. Tenison-Woods was a frequent con¬ and so Ron Bracewell was given a copy of tributor to the Journal in the late nineteenth Anthony Huxley’s Plant and Planet, by the century.8 Roderick O’Brien, who uncovered son of Julian Huxley FRS and the nephew of the earlier report, has for this issue found an Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World. address given by Tenison-Woods in Hong Irene Kelly, widow of past President Kong about the mines and minerals of the Jak Kelly, tells me that the Kellys and the Malay Peninsula, published in a local news¬ Bracewells were fast friends; she had visited paper of the time, on 3 February 1885. him in Palo Alto just before his death.10 On As well as a discourse about Malayan geol¬ ogy, the piece is of interest by contrasting Euro¬ 9 Thompson, H.A. (1858), Description of the Clunes pean technology against Chinese contracting Gold Mine, Victoria, The Sydney Magazine of Science and Art 2: 79-80, 1859. (Paper presented at the Philo¬ in mining tin in Malaya. The industrial revo¬ sophical Society of N.S.W. on Aug. 11, 1858.) https:// lution had equipped European miners with archive.org/stream/sydneymagazinesO 1 socigoog#page/ new technology — machinery, explosives, n95/mode/lup mechanised transport — but Tenison-Woods 10 At the 1269th OGM of 5 December 2018, in her acknowledgment of Anita Petzler, the 2018 Jak Kelly Award winner, Irene Kelly mentioned a colleague of Ron Bracewells: pioneer radioastronomer, Ruby 8 See the list in O’Brien (2017). Payne-Scott; see Halleck (2018). 122 Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of New South Wales Marks — Editorial 16 May 1978, Ron Bracewell gave the Socie¬ David Hush FRSN is an eminent com¬ ty’s Pollock Memorial Lecture, “Life in outer poser.