INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 27 



Up to 1853 the geology of Victoria was almost a blank. What 

 little was then known of it was due to Mitchell, Strzelecki, and 

 Jukes, but that little Avas for the most part either misread or 

 too indefinite to be available in the future. Thanks to the ability 

 and zeal of Mr. Selwyn and the members of his staff, aided by the 

 palseontological determinations of Professor McCoy, the geological 

 structure of Victoria w^as rapidly unfolded, and large tracts of 

 country were geologically surveyed in detail and illustrated by 

 sixty-five admirably-executed maps on a scale of 2in. to one mile, 

 each embracing an area of fifty-four square miles. In 1863 a 

 general sketch map was published on a scale of eight miles to lin., 

 and republished in 1867* in a reduced form. The Lower and 

 Upper Silurian strata were recognised, and the line of demarcation 

 drawn between them ; the Avon River sandstones were relerred to 

 Carboniferous or passage-beds in that direction from the Upper 

 Devonian ; the limestones of Buchan and other isolated patches in 

 Gippsland were classed as Middle Devonian; the coal-bearing 

 strata of the Cape Otway and Western Port districts were tabulated 

 as Jurassic. These determinations stand to-day ; but the elabora- 

 tion of the Bacchus Marsh beds and the Tertiary deposits is the 

 work of later authorities. Selwyn made the first attempt to classify 

 the Tertiary beds of Victoria, but as his classification was based 

 on iithological characters, and as the palseontological data were not 

 brought into relation with the existing marine fauna of adjacent 

 areas, no high value can be attached to his determinations. Pro- 

 fessor McCoy occupied himself with some of the Tertiary fossils, 

 but they are, so far as published, too limited in number to serve as 

 a basis of classification on the principle advocated by Sir Charles 

 Lyell; other authors, with no local knowledge, have in their 

 attempt to revise the classification, only made further confusion. 



It is a matter of deep regret that in a spirit of parsimony the 

 Victorian Parliament in 1868 abolished the Geological Survey, one 

 of the most complete ever organised. The deprivation of the 

 means of obtaining accurate information as to the mineral tract* 

 which remained to be explored, was, however, to some extent 

 removed in 1871, when the geological work was partially resumed 

 under the direction of Mr. Brough Smyth, then Secretary for 

 Mines, and subsequently under his successor, Mr. J. Couchman, 

 and continued by Messrs. Norman Taylor, R. A. F. Murray, J. 

 Dunn, and F. Krause, assisted by Mr. A. W. Howitt (Warden of 

 Goldfields) and W. Nicholas. Geological maps of the principal 



* Intercolonial Exhibition Essays, plate 1. 



