The South Australian Naturalist. 5o 



OUR BEGINNINGS.— THE FIRST EXCURSION. 



By W. H. Selway. 



In the Feburary number of ^'The South Australian 

 Naturalist" I gave some particulars of the first whole-day 

 excursion, namely, that to Hallett's Cove on January 1, 1884, 

 but as then mentioned, the first of all the excursions held by 

 our club was one to the National Park (then known as ''Gov- 

 ernment Farm") on November 24, 1883. Professor Ralph 

 Tate, F.G.S., was the scientific leader, and Mr. W. Cook, the 

 then keeper of the Farm, guided the party in their ramble. It 

 was appropriate, perhaps, that the first scientific instruction 

 in the field should be of a geological nature, as the chairman 

 of the Section then occupied the position of Chair of Geology 

 at the University of Adelaide. It was in a railway cutting not 

 far from the bridge over which vehicular traffic now enters the 

 Park, that the first address was given by Professor Tate, who 

 pointed out that the sides of the cutting indicated the nature 

 of the soil to be talcose slates in a state of decomposition. In 

 the next cutting they would find the debris of talcose slates, 

 angular gravel, and sandy beds, with underlying clays. Judg- 

 ing from the lithological evidences, he considered these beds 

 (which are always gold-bearing) as being of lacustrine or 

 fluviatile origin, and coeval with the miocenes of the Gawler 

 district. 



The Professor, who was equally at home either in the 

 realms of botany or geology, then dwelt on the vegetation of 

 the district, pointing out that different Eucalypts occupied 

 different zones. The elevation there was just on the verge of 

 the upper limit of the peppermint and the lowest limit of the 

 white gum. The characteristics of healthy groiuid were indi- 

 cated by the many kinds of proteaceous shrubs. 



One of the chief botanical features of the Farm was the 

 number of orchids to be seen there. On this occasion it was too 

 late in the season for them to be in flower, but the report 

 states that "judging from the withered specimens the Pro- 

 fessor considered they abounded here." He pointed out, it is 

 stated, a very rare one, Diuris sulphurea, which "until last 

 year was never known westw^ard of the south-eastern district." 

 Personally, I never remember seeing this one in the National 

 Park, and my impression used to be that the Clarendon dis- 

 trict was the nearest to Adelaide for this particular orchid. 

 Whether a withered specimen was wrongly named I cannot 

 say, and whether other collectors have found D. sulphurea in 

 this locality I do not know. The interesting orchid, Pterostylis 



