Section C. 



GEOLOGY. 



ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT. 

 A. GIBB MAITLAND, F.G.S., 



Government Geologist of Western Australia, and formerly of the Geological 

 Survey of Queensland. 



RECENT ADVANCES IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE 

 GEOLOGY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA. 



(With a Geological Sketch Map. Plate I.) 



My first duty in asBuming the position of the presidentship of the 

 Section of Geology, is to express to you my deep sense of gratitude for 

 your confidence in my devotion to the welfare of our science implied 

 in the election of one, who, owing to the exigencies of official life, has 

 had few opportunities during the last 19 years of becoming personally 

 acquainted with the majority of the " brethren of the hammer " in 

 Australia. The honor, however, is enhanced by the fact that in ad- 

 dressing the members of this section of the association in Adelaide 

 I am speaking in the capital of a State which has contributed — in the 

 persons of Messrs. H. Y. L. Brown and H. P. Woodward — so much 

 to the progress of official geological research in Western Australia. 



The civilising value of scientific investigation, such as is evidenced 

 by a gathering of this kind, where the hammerers from the West meet 

 those from the East upon common ground, for the purpose of dis- 

 cussing, consolidating, and recording the work of the past, must tend 

 to link all parts of this continent together, and time, perhaps, will show 

 that it may fall to the lot of the Australian men of science to materially 

 assist in the solution of the problem of preserving those harmonious 

 relationships and the strengthening of those ties which are so severely 

 taxing the combined resources of political diplomacy. 



It is, I believe, customary for the occupant of the presidential 

 chair to offer a few observations on some special department of the 

 science which seems, in his opinion, worthy of attention, and I am, 

 therefore, unwilling to depart from what must be regarded as tradi- 

 tional usage. On looking over the list of subjects reviewed by my 

 predecessors in this chair, and the contributions of the different members 

 read before the section, I find few dealing with those portions of Aus- 

 tralasia with which I am personally familiar, viz.. Queensland. British 

 New Guinea, and Western Australia. 



