presidents address. 145 



University. 



At the Biological Laboratory of the University, Mr. J. P. Hill 

 is working at the development of the teeth of the bandicoot. At 

 the laboratories of the Medical School Professor Wilson is 

 studying the same subject in collaboration with Mr. Hill, and 

 also the development of the teeth of the platypus. Dr. C. J. 

 Martin is still continuing his investigations on the subject of snake 

 poison, and is working out the general development *of the 

 platypus. At the Macleay Museum Mr. George Masters is still 

 employed at his task of classifying the collections of foreign 

 Orthoptera and Coleoptera, and has mounted on ground glass all 

 the collections of Australian and foreign birds' eggs and a large 

 number of marine and land mollusca. 



Scientific Papers, kc. 



It would, of course, be quite beyond the scope of this address 

 to review the principal papers of scientific interest which were 

 published by Australian Societies last year. A few publications, 

 however, relating to my own subject will be referred to. The 

 very important paper by ]Mr. R. L. Jack, at the Brisl^ane meeting 

 of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, 

 showed that his geological surve}^ of the intake beds of the 

 cretaceous formation proved that the supply of rain water 

 draining into the beds was fully forty times as much as had been 

 previously estimated. On the assumption, therefore, that a total 

 of about one hundved million gallons flow now daily from the 

 Queensland artesian bores, it should be possible to draw at least 

 forty times as much as the above amount of water out of the beds 

 without encroaching on the supply. The geological explorations 

 by Mr. E. F. Pittman, the Government Geologist, during the past 

 year, on the cretaceous rocks of the Upper Darling and in the 

 Parish of Bidura, Balranald district, have shown that it is very 

 probable that the artesian basin may extend far to the south-west 

 of Wilcannia, possibly underneath the overlying Tertiary deposits 

 of West Victoria and South-East South Australia to the coast. 



K 



