president's address. 1233 



Annual Addresses to the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 

 New Zealand, 1883-4. I cannot agree with some of the views 

 expressed by the Author. 



I may, however, here mention that the learned Palaeontologist, 

 Baron von Ettingshausen, is now engaged upon an examination of 

 an extensive collection of fossil plants which 'were obtained by Mr. 

 T. W. E. David, F.G.S., Geological Surveyor, and myself, from the 

 Lower Tertiary deposits in New England, and the result of his 

 labours will be awaited with much interest. In acknowledging the 

 receipt of this collection the Baron writes that " he recognized 

 instantly several types common with the Tertiaiy Floi'a of Europe 

 and other Tertiary Floras, and strange to the living Flora of 

 Australia. There is no doubt that the Tertiaiy Flora of Australia 

 contains besides the elements of the living Flora, also the elements 

 of other Floras extinct in Australia, but developed now in other 

 parts of the globe. We have found the same mixture of the 

 elements of the Floras in the Tertiary Flora of Europe, of America, 

 and of Asia. When such a thorough going analogy as this is found 

 to run through all Tertiary Floras we have investigated, no other 

 explanation is possible, but that the Tertiary Flora in general is 

 an original Flora which contains the elements of the living 

 Floras, and from which all living Floras must have descended. 

 The descendants only have developed and varied off from it in 

 different directions." 



It may be well also to note the evidence which the fossil re- 

 mains afford regarding the temperature of the climate of the 

 period immediately preceding the Pleistocene. 



The fossil plants from the upper Pliocene auriferous drifts of 

 Victoria and New South Wales, which have been described and 

 figured by Baron Sir F. von Mueller, indicate the prevalence 

 during that period of a warmer climate than the present. In 

 reference to these fossils and their living representatives the Rev. 

 Dr. Woolls, F.L.S., remarks that " the Phymatocaryon Mackayi 

 which was taken from the Haddon Gold Field at a depth of about 

 150 feet approaches in many respects some species of the Sapind- 

 aceae, of the fossil genus Civpanoides, and yet at the present day, no 



