Early in 1916, while he was still in Ballarat, he came to an arrangement with a prominent Melbourne weekly magazine, The Australasian, to contribute an essay on some scientific topic each fortnight. These were called Science Notes, for which he adopted the pseudonym Tellurian. He continued writing these, even while on his overseas trips in 1931 and 1937, until he became Director of Education in 1939. During the 1937 trip, he wrote 18 essays for The Australasian, two for The Advertiser and one for The Argus. In all he wrote some 620 essays, on a very wide range of topics. They provided the basic material for his three books of essays on popular science, Bunyips and Billabongs, Mostly Australian and Gathered Moss, each of which received excellent reviews.