Besides the University, there are in Sydney a considerable number of very important educational establishments and public schools. The most strenuous exertions are made to keep the public schools in a high state of efficiency, and there is scarcely a hamlet, where the rising generation may not be instructed in reading, writing, arithmetic, grammar, and geography.[6] An observatory is also in course of erection, but meteorological observations had long since been carried on in the principal places of the colony, and from the favourable natural conditions of the continent for conducting such investigations, the results must greatly contribute to our acquaintance with the laws regulating atmospherical phenomena. One very deserving institution dedicated to the noble object of awakening a sense of the beautiful, and furthering the interests of science, is the Australian Museum. All that this glorious country presents of interesting and useful in the three great divisions of nature is here being gradually classified in scientific order, and displayed in elegant cases in spacious handsome apartments, the whole thrown open to the public for amusement and instruction, free of cost. Already an excellent start has been made with valuable collections of conchylia and birds, as well as numerous ethnographical specimens and fossil remains. The management of the Museum has been confided to the most distinguished scientific men of the colony,[7] and owing to the deep interest taken by these gentlemen in this truly national undertaking, the sphere of its activity is likely ere long to be extended to scientific publications, the appearance of which will be doubly valuable and important in a country which presents so many different objects for investigation and elucidation.