TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION C. 127 



Having endeavoured so far to place before you a brief 

 retrospective and prospective view of Victorian mining, let 

 me conclude by expressing the hope that some of the sugges- 

 tions offered may prove interesting, and serve to induce or 

 stimulate research ; and finally accept my heartiest wishes that 

 the best results may attend the labours of this and other 

 sections of the Australasian Association for the Advancement 

 of Science. 



1. On the Occurrence of Nepheline-bearing Bocks In Neiv 



Zealand. 



By Professor George H. F. Ulrich, F.G.S., Director of 

 School of Mines, Dunedin. 



Plate V. 

 It is not many years ago that species of the interesting group of 

 minerals — viz., nepheline, leucite, hauyne, nosean, and sodalite 

 —called by some petrographers " feldspar-like," and classed 

 by mineralogists either as the Nepheline Group or as the 

 Leucite Group, were considered rather rare — indeed, the four 

 last-mentioned quite absent in the volcanic rocks of countries 

 outside Europe. In recent years this latter supposition has 

 been negatived by the discovery of rocks bearing leucite, 

 accompanied by one or more of its isometric congeners, in 

 isolated localities in Asia, Africa, and America ; but of its occur- 

 rence in Australasia there was still no record. However, it 

 at last fell to the lot of our energetic co-workers in New South 

 Wales, the Eev. J. Milne Curran, Mr. Edgeworth David, and 

 Mr. William Anderson, to fill the gap by the fortunate discovery 

 of a typical leucite basalt in two isolated localities, Byrock 

 and El Capitan, far in the interior of New South Wales; and 

 an exhaustive description of these occurrences by Messrs. 

 David and Anderson is given in a memoir in Part iii.. Vol. i., 

 of " Records of the Geological Survey of New South Wales," 

 1890. As an occurrence in New Zealand, near Castlepoint, 

 on the east coast of Wellington, a leucite basalt is mentioned, 

 though without description of the rock, by Mr. W. Skey, 

 Colonial Analyst, in Col. Mus. and Lab. Eep. No. 10, p. 48. 



Nepheline, both as elaeolite in plutonic and as nepheline 

 proper in neo-volcanic rocks, has long been known from coun- 

 tries outside Europe,''' still also of rather restricted and isolated 



* An interesting discovery of older and newer nepheline-bearing rocks 

 ■was made a few years ago in Brazil by Professor O. A. Derby (Q.J.G.S., 

 1887, xliii., No. 171, pp. 457-473). 



