398 NOTES AND EXHIBITS. 



large numbers of the common white ant. The flower is a hybrid 

 raised in England, and first imported to this colony by Mr. 

 Campbell. 



Mr. J. G. Griffin, C.E., exhibited two samples of gravel used 

 as ballast on the Deniliquin and Moama Railway. No. 1 was 

 taken from the bed of the Edwards River, and consisted chiefly of 

 fine subangular drift, while No. 2 obtained from a pit 12 miles 

 south from Deniliquin, and at a depth of from 12 to 30 feet, 

 contained in addition to fine drift some waterworn pebbles of 

 quartz, 1J inches in diameter. Professor Stephens considered 

 that the occurrence of such coarse pebbles in the finer drift might 

 be accidental, and that they may have been dropped from the roots 

 of the trees which were swept over this country during floods. 

 Mr. Macleay thought that this country had gradually risen, and 

 referred to the great deposits of coarse gravel on the Murrum- 

 bidgee and elsewhere as evidence of the powerful transporting 

 currents in past ages. Mr. Wilkinson said these extensive 

 deposits probably corresponded in geologic age with those of the 

 glacial period of the northern hemisphere. At that time there 

 must have been a much heavier rainfall in the southern hemis- 

 phere than we have at the present day, and the material derived 

 from the valleys then eroded in the higher lands spread over the 

 low-lying country and formed the plains. Some of the pebbles 

 resembled those found in the Devonian conglomerate beds of the 

 Hanging Rock, between Urana and Wagga. Mr. Whittell 

 remarked that similar drifts had been met with in some wells sunk 

 in the level country to the west of the Darling River. 



The Pi-esident exhibited some specimens of fossil insects found 

 in the tin-bearing tertiary deep leads near Vegetable Creek, New 

 England. This is the second discovery of fossil insects in Aus- 

 tralia, and the specimens show the impressions of larvse and 

 pupaB of Ephemera or " May fly." 



A fossil coral (Cyathoj^hyllum sp.), from the carboniferous 

 rocks, near Jervis Bay, was exhibited on behalf of the Hon. Jas. 

 Norton. 



