BY JOSEPH LAUTERER, M.D. XVU 



Barrier Reef. From the above-named explorers and from his 

 own investigations he published, in 1850, a good outline of 

 Australian geology in his " Sketch of the Physical Structure of 

 Australia." This book, to which a coloured map is added, was 

 for some years the best available handbook for the student of 

 Australian geology. 



Mr. Augustus Charles Gregory's expedition from the 

 mouth of Victoria River to Brisbane in 1855 elucidated much of 

 the geology of North Australia and Queensland. 



In 1851 Hargreaves, who died in 1891, discovered near 

 Bathurst, in New South Wales, rich alluvial deposits of gold in 

 a place called afterwards Ophir ; and soon gold in still larger 

 quantities was found in Victoria. 



The opening of universities in the chief cities of Australia 

 gave more opportunities to geological students, but the ^real 

 practical and scientific work was done during the last four 

 decenniums by the officers of geological survey. Victoria had a 

 geological map as early as 1863, by the exertions of Selwyn and 

 Professor McCoy. The Rev. W. B. Clarke was commissioned 

 to the geological survey by the New South Wales Government 

 in 1851. Born in 1798, he came to Australia in 1839, and died 

 in 1878. Forty years of his life were dedicated to the 

 investigation of Australian geology. The palaeozoic fossils of 

 his collection were described by Professor De Koninck, of 

 Liege. Clarke's book on the sedimentary formations of New 

 South Wales (1878) has been the itarting-pomt for all fresh 

 research by his followers, and his geological map was the 

 foundation stone for Wilkinson's geological map of New South 

 Wales (under the auspices of the Department, 1880). The Rev, 

 Tenison- Woods, the late indefatigable enthusiast, who worked 

 on botany, zoology, paleontology, and geology, gave, since 

 1862, valuable additions to our knowledge of the Lepidodendrou 

 beds, and held the opinion that the Desert Sandstone was a- 

 wind-blown formation. He also described fossils from the 

 Ipswich formation, and refers the Ipswich coal to the Jurassic- 

 It must not be forgotten that Baron von Mueller has been 

 working in paheophytology, as he described the fossils from 

 Eocene and Miocene river beds wliich had been covered by 

 volcanic lavas. Not one of the now living plants was found by 



