president's address. 857 



Messrs. Hall and Pritchard in the same paper suggest that the 

 beds at Dalton and "Vegetable Creek, which have the same 

 lithological character, and which Baron ±Cttingshausen considered 

 Eocene, may have to be referred back to the Cretaceous also. 



Messrs. Hall and Pritchard have written several valuable 

 papers discussing the age of the Tertiary strata of Victoria, and 

 Mr. T. H. Wright has in the most painstaking manner investi- 

 gated the geological features of an area of Gippsland, and proved 

 the true sequence of the beds, in some cases entirely reversing 

 previously received ideas. Unfortunately I am unable through 

 lack of time and space to enter into these matters as I should 

 like, and can, therefore, only refer to the papers read by those 

 gentlemen before the Royal Society of Victoria and Austi'alasian 

 Association, and in the case of Mr. Wright's investigation, to the 

 8th Report of the Geological Survey of Victoria. 



Earliest Dicotyledons in the Northern Hemisphere. 



In the Report of the United States Geological Survey (Vol. xvi. 

 Part 1), just received, there is a paper by Professor Lester F. 

 Ward entitled " Some Analogies in the Lower Cretaceous of 

 Europe and America." 



Up to 188S the oldest known dicotyledon was one from the 

 Middle Cretaceous of Greenland, which was described by Heer 

 under the name of Popuhcs primaeva. 



Professor Fontaine in 1888 found in some of the Lower Potomac 

 Series, in what was supposed to be Jurassic, some portions of leaves 

 I'esembling dicotyledons, but not easily distinguishable from the 

 lower groups, ferns, cycads and other gymnosperms. 



In the Report to which reference is now made Professor Ward 

 says : — " On numerous occasions, dating as far back as 1878, I 

 have expressed the opinion that the dicotyledons could not have 

 had their origin later than the Middle Jura, and it will not surprise 

 me if the final verdict of science shall place the Potomac forma- 

 tion, at least the lower member, in which the plants occur, with 

 that geologic system." 



