12 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 



Mount Wingen, and notes that the fossil vegetation consisted 

 chiefly of Glossopteris Browniana. 



Mesozoic.~Th.e collection included also a portion of the jiuard 

 of a Belemnite, obtained near Mount Abundance ; its occurrence is 

 noted on Mitchell's chart, though not referred to in the letter- 

 press. This is the first secondary fossil recorded for Australia, 

 though it was not till 1880 that it was brought to scientific notice 

 by Mr. Robert Etheridge, jun. * It probably belongs to the 

 Cretaceous species, Belemnites Australia:, Phillips. 



Diprotodon Period — The ossiferous caves of the Wellington 

 Valley and at Buree were discovered by Mitchell in 1830, and an 

 account of the survey of them was published in 1831. f In 1835 

 more extended researches were imdertaken, and the particulars 

 respecting the animal remains then found were supplied by Owen 

 (afterwards Sir Richard), who demonstrated that the existing 

 marsupial fauna was preceded in the same area in later Tertiary 

 times by one in many respects similar, yet difiering for the most 

 part specifically and to some extent generically, presenting forms 

 Avhich are colossal in comparison with the largest modern represen- 

 tatives. Such are Diprotodon and Nototherium. This early work 

 of Owen's was only the commencement of those investigations 

 which culminated in that monument of marvellous industry and 

 talent, the " Fossil Mammals of Australia." 



Darwin. Charles, was naturalist to the surveying ship The 

 Beagle on her second voyage, 1832-'?6. The Beagle, on her home- 

 ward passage, called at Sydney and King George Sound. The 

 geological observations relating to those places are brief, and to a 

 large extent had been anticipated by Mitchell in respect of the 

 first, and by Peron in respect to the second, while, as regards King 

 George Sound, Darwin corrected some of the erroneous observa- 

 tions recorded by Vancouver and Flinders. Lonsdale describes some 

 Australian Carboniferous Polyzoa, and Sowerby some Spiiiferidiae J ; 

 and we have thus another instance of the early application of 

 palaeontology to the determination of the correlative age of stratified 

 deposits. 



Grey, Lieut, (now Sir George)§ was commissioned to explore 

 the coastline between Prince Regent River and Swan River. 

 Towards the end of 1837 he landed at Hanover Bay, and found the 

 shore fringed with bold inaccessible hills and bluff headlands, as 



* Proc. Roy. Soc, Tasai.ania, for 1879, p. 18. + Proc. Geol. Soc, vol. i, p. 321. 



J Darwin's Volcanic Islands. 1844. 



J Journals of Two E.xpeditions in N.W. and W. Australia, 2 vols. 1841. 



