Section C 



GEOLOGY 



ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT: 



Professor P. MARSHALL. M.A.. D.Sc. F.G.S. 



Professor of Geology in the University of Otago, Dunedin, N.Z. 



My first duty is to thank you for the honour you have conferred 

 upon me in appointing me to the important position of President 

 ot the Geology Section of this Association. Before trenching on 

 the subject to which I specially desire to direct your attention, I 

 cannot fail to refer to the work of one of our members who at 

 previous conferences has added much to the enjoyment of our 

 meetings. Professor David, it is well known, has wrung from the 

 frozen South some of her most guarded secrets, and it is a matter 

 of keen regret to all of us that circumstances have not permitted 

 him to be present at this x\ssociation to give us first hand some 

 statements of the experiences that he has been determined and 

 plucky enough to survive, and some details of those discoveries 

 he has made under the hard taskmaster. Jack Frost. We would 

 wiUingly forego much of our other interesting matter could we but 

 hear something of the geology of these cold, stark lands from 

 these brave pioneers, whose deeds will for ever redound to the glory 

 of Sydney and her University. 



The honour of occupying the position of President carries 

 with it certain responsibihties, and chief amongst these is the 

 choice of a subject for a Presidential Address. It is of 

 course a truism that the selected subject should be one of a suffi- 

 ciently general nature to arouse the interest of those from all 

 portions of the widespread Australasian area. At the same time 

 it is obviously desirable that the address should deal with some 

 branch of the subject of which your President possesses some 

 special knowledge. 



This involves me in considerable difficulty, for I can lay claim 

 to no special knowledge, except in so far as our Science applies to 

 New Zealand. But this land of fierce geological controversy is 

 so small and so remote from you that I cannot expect you to have 

 any particular interest in its detailed geology. New Zealand has 

 in the past been made to hide its geological nature and literature 

 behind a misty veil of sesquipedalian nomenclature of Polynesian 

 origin. There is, however, one geological feature in which we 

 have a common interest. The Pacific Ocean washes your shores 

 as well as ours. Its secrets are as alluring to you as to us, and I 



