46 president's address^section c. 



found time to study many branches of knowledge, and was the 

 mainstay of science in that State. For nearly thirty years his 

 writings were mostly geological, of which the chief was his great 

 work on the "Geology of Tasmania" (published in . 1888), and 

 still the chief source of information on its palaeontology. I am 

 glad to bear personal tribute tci his helpfulness to those interested 

 in our science. 



William Harper Twelvetrees, a former President of this section, 

 after a mining career in the Urals and Asia Minor, during which 

 he made important studies in Permian vertebrates and in petro- 

 logy, commenced in 1891. in co-operation with the late W. F. 

 Petterd, a series of papers which laid the foundation of Tasmanian 

 petrology. He became Government Geologist of Tasmania in 1899, 

 and with the assistance of an able staff, raised the work of the Sur- 

 vey to a very high standard, fittingly acknowledged by the award 

 to him of the Clarke Memorial Medal "for meritorious contribu- 

 tion to the Geology, Mineralogy, and Natural History of Aus- 

 tralia." His wide knowledge of geological literatuTe in several 

 languages, and his generous and kindly nature, will long be re- 

 membered by those who, like the writer, had the privilege of "his 

 friendship. 



Robert Etheridge, junr., the son of a distinguished palaeon- 

 tologist, was the chief contributor to' that science in Australia for 

 nearly fifty years. He joined Selwyn's staff of brilliant young 

 men in the Geological Siirvey of Victoria in the " sixties", became 

 later a palaeontologist on the Geological Survey of Great Britain, 

 and in 1888 on that of New South Wales, and in 1893 he under- 

 took the Curatorship of the Australian Museum, Sydney. Here 

 he was, in fact, if not in title, the honorary Consulting Palgeon- 

 tclogist of nearly every Geological Survey in Australia. In ad- 

 dition, he performed much important bibliographical and ethno- 

 logical research work. The award to him of the Clarke Memorial 

 Medal, and of the Mueller Medal of this Association, record the 

 high esteem in which he was held by Australian scientists. 



Dr. Thomas Sargent Hall, Lectvirer on Biology in the Melbourne 

 University, was the chief contributor to our knowledge of the 

 graptolites in Australasia. His work attracted world-wide at- 

 tention because of its importance in regard to the problem of cor- 

 relaticn of ancient formations in distant areas. He also contri- 

 buted extensively to the study of the Tertiary fossils of Victoria. 



To Alexander McKay, we owe a. very great part of the early 

 geological exploration of New Zealand. He was educated in a 

 part-time village school in Scotland, and during the "sixties" 

 was a prospector in Australia and New Zealand. He was em- 

 ployed by Dr. von Haast in 1870 as fossil-collector, and later acted 

 in similar cap-acity in the Geological Survey organized by Dr. 



