INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 23 



logical treatment of my subject must be abandoned at this stage ; 

 but, in the form of an appendix, I have set forth a summary of 

 discoveries and original researches in respect of the principal 

 periods now known to be comprised in the table of the Australian 

 Sedimentary Deposits. 



GEOLOGICAL SURVEYS. 



1. NEW SOUTH WALES. 

 So early as 1845 Strzelecki urged a regular geological survey 

 under Government direction. The subsequent discovery of mineral 

 treasures showed the importance of a minute and careful study of 

 the rocks and minerals of the colony ; and, tinally, through the 

 persistent advocacy of the Rev. W. B. Clarke, representations were 

 made to the Home Government as to the expediency of instituting 

 a mineralogical and geological survey of the colony. As a result of 

 their representations, the appointment of geological surveyor Avas, 

 early in 1849, offered to Mr. Beete Jukes (afterwards Professor 

 and Director of the Irish Geological Survey), whose personal 

 acquaintance with the geology of Australia made the selection a 

 most desirable one, but it was declined ; then Mr. Bristow, of the 

 Geological Survey of England and Wales, accepted the offer, but, 

 before the expiry of the term allowed him to prepare for his depar- 

 ture, he tendered his resignation ; Anally Mr. Samuel Stutchbury 

 then curator of the Bristol Museum, was appointed, on the 

 recommendation of Sir Henry I', de la Beche, Director of 

 the Geological Survey of Great Britain, as being " weLl in- 

 structed in survey work, with great experience as a coal viewer^ 

 and a skilled mineralogist." Mr. Stutchbury arrived towards the 

 end of 1850, and his fii-st official field work was to proceed with 

 Hargreaves to the alleged gold discoveries, and to make a searching 

 examination into the conditions of their occurrences. A survey of 

 the geological features of the gold-producing country occupied 

 Stutchbury about two years ; but during the latter part of his 

 term of office he was chiefly employed in the southern portions of 

 Queensland, particularly on the Ipswich coalfield, which he re- 

 garded as contemporaneous with that of Newcastle. The Palaeozoic 

 fossiliferous limestone on the western flank of the Blue Mountains, 

 discovered by Mitchell, was referred on palaeontological evidence to 

 the Devonian — *' Certainly older than the Carboniferous Limestone 

 of Europe." The authors of the " Geology of Queensland," who 

 hail Stutchbury as one of three woi'thy pioneers in Australian 

 geology, have expressed the opinion that his sixteen repor-ts 



