572 president's address. 



Australia, and of these only two belong to the numerous genera 



which characterise this flora I find that the Tertiary 



flora of Australia is far more nearly allied to the Tertiary floras of 

 other Continents than to the living flora of Australia. It seems, 

 therefore, that the numerous forms which characterise the latter 

 have been developed out of Pliocene or Post Tertiary forms of 

 plants till now unknown to us. The recent flora of Australia 

 contains also genera which characterise other floras, but not the 

 Australian. It was till now enigmatical how they came to form 

 part of this recent flora, as the species are endemic and have not 

 wandered ; for instance, the species of the European and North 

 American genus Fagus, of the .Asiatic genera Tabemoemontana 

 and Elceocarpus, &c. As some of them now have been discovered 

 in the Australian Tertiary, for instance the above-named, there is 

 no doubt they passed over into the living flora from the Tertiary." 

 To return to the auriferous drifts. Water- worn or " alluvial" 

 gold occurs in formations older than the Tertiary. Some of the 

 gold-bearing gravels of the Mount Brown diggings are believed 

 to be of Cretaceous age. In the Gulgong district the Coal 

 Measures conglomerates, where they rest upon the upturned 

 beds of Silurian schists containing quartz reefs, have been 

 mined for gold, and nuggets up to 5ozs. in weight were obtained. 

 This is the oldest formation in which waterworn gold has yet 

 been found. Of course the gold bearing drifts vary considerably 

 in richness according to the nature of the auriferous formations 

 from which they have been derived, and the amount of concen- 

 tration or natural ground-sluicing to which the disintegrated 

 rocks have been subjected. The deep leads at the Parkes, 

 Porbes, Temora and Gulgong diggings were very rich in places ; 

 thus in a claim near Gulgong as much as 3 5 ozs. of gold have 

 been washed from one tin-dishful of dirt ; and from another 

 claim on the same lead, seven miners in three years obtained, 

 clear of all expenses, gold to value of £28,000. But, as you 

 might expect, itisonly near the reefs or sources of the gold that the 

 leads have been so rich. This fact has often led to the discovery 

 of the original matrices of the gold, and these have generally 



