122 president's address — section e. 



cold, the chemical modifications of substances, the mechanical 

 effects produced by winds and other agencies, the operation of 

 vegetable and animal organisms, and the arts and contrivances of 

 man, combine in the warfare against "what is." 



But hand in hand with this destruction — nay, as a part of it — there 

 is everywhere to be found corresponding reconstruction, for 

 untiring nature immediately restores that wliich she has just 

 destroyed. If continents are disappearing in one direction, they 

 are rising into new existence in another. Though the great sea 

 wears down tlie cliffs against which it beats, the earth takes ita 

 revenge by upheaving the ocean bed. 



The duration of the successive ages of the earth's past existence 

 ismeasuied almost wholly by reference to the fo-sil remains of 

 animals and plants found embedded in the rocks of which its crust 

 is composed. 



The recent highly important discovery of fossil bones at Lake 

 Mulligan, in the colony of South Australia, will be of great scien- 

 tific value, exceeding as it does in magnitude and variety any 

 other of a like nature hitherto made in Australia. 



It is through the facts of geography as now known and inter- 

 preted that the geologist and zoologist are enabled to understand 

 the true signification of much that has occurred in the past, 

 the traces of which survive in physical features or organic forms. 

 He finds that the most important agencies in determining and 

 modifying the present conditions on the earth, whether as 

 affecting inorganic nature or organic beings, are closely connected 

 with the actual distribution of land and sea, and in the configura- 

 tion of the surface learns that it is through these agencies that he 

 must seek to unravel the intricacies of the long past. 



In its turn, geology throws a light on much that would be other- 

 wise unintelligible to the geographer. It teaches him how the 

 bormdaries of the sea and land have been determined, where former 

 connections have been severed, how islands have risen from the 

 ocean, and how even continents may have sunk below it. 



The Most Honorable the Marquis of Lome, in his presidential 

 address, delivered at the anniversary (1888) meeting of the Koyal 

 Scottish Geographical Society, remarked " that if the noblest 

 science among us is the knowledge of man, we may claim that we 

 work to raise man to a higher level in making each life an aid for 

 the advance of all. Each individual's devotion helps the second 

 noblest science when his effort is directed to a knowledge of the 

 features of that earth God has given to be shared among us, in 

 proportion as we use the talents of courage, enterprise, and 

 patriotism." 



GEOGRAPHICAL EDUCATION. 



To the Australasian Colonies the study of geography is of especial 

 importance, and it comes home to each and all of us in a way that 



