Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria. 145 



'b}'- the country would a great deal more than cover the cost. 

 He would be very pleased to do what he could if any endea- 

 vour were made to induce the Government to give some 

 consideration to the matter, and suggested that it might be 

 as well to form a committee. 



The President thought this might be done. At any rate, 

 it was a matter worthy of consideration. 



Mr. Griffiths thought it would be well to bring the 

 matter forward at the next meeting of the Council, and to 

 move the appointment of a sub-committee. 



Mr. RosALES said he was very glad to have heard the 

 matter mentioned. A Royal Commission on Gold was now 

 sitting, and he thought it very probable that if the matter 

 Avere mentioned to them, they would take it in hand. 



Mr. Dennant was very glad that attention had been 

 drawn to the matter. It had been his dream for many years 

 to see this work again undertaken. He spoke of tlie 

 difficulties experienced by individual geologists in their 

 investigations without the aid of geological surveys, and 

 stated that many inaccuracies existed in the maps which 

 they did have, owing to the rapidity of the surveys made. 

 Occasionally one of the members of Mr. Selwyn's old staff 

 might happen to go over the ground, and a few corrections 

 would appear in the next geological map, which would be 

 published probably ten years afterwards, but really that was 

 not the way to deal with a Colony like this. He certainly 

 thought the Government should at once proceed to form a 

 competent surveying staff", so that the Colony might be sur- 

 veyed with the greatest possible despatch. Outcrops of 

 valuable minerals and things of special scientific interest 

 might be met with in different parts of the Colony, and yet 

 such work was left to amateurs, who were generally too busy 

 with their own affairs to be able to give much time to the 

 examination of the strata of the Colony. Most of the gold- 

 fields, he believed, had been fairly well survej'ed, but the 

 major part of the country was left untouched. In many 

 instances the geological work which had been done needed 

 correction, and he really thought the Society would be doing 

 good work if a sub-committee were formed to urge upon the 

 Government the necessity of making a complete survey of 

 the country. He had no doubt that in the mesozoic country 

 there were numerous outcrops of coal which had not yet 

 been met with ; and if a complete survey weve made of the 



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