238 



Paper. — " On a new Myoporum from South Australia," by J. 

 H. Maiden and E. Betche. 



Dr. Stirling, M.D., F.R.S., moved the following resolution 

 (Prof. TaTE seconded. Carried.) : — " That whereas the aborigines 

 of Australia are rapidly disappearing, it is desirable, in the 

 interests of science and of our successors, that a comprehensive 

 and enduring record of the Australian race, in the fullest 

 anthropological and ethnological significance, should be taken 

 before it is too late ; that this Society communicate with the 

 Royal Societies of Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, and 

 West Australia and the Linnean Society of New South Wales, 

 with the object of asking whether those Societies will join in a 

 combined movement, together with such other scientific bodies as 

 may be interested, to induce the Governments of their respective 

 colonies to promise contributions of say £500 from each colony, 

 payable in such annual instalments as may be necessary to defray 

 the expenses of such a work ; that contingent upon the approval 

 by this Society of the above resolution, the Council be requested 

 to put it into effect by forwarding copies to the bodies 

 mentioned." 



Ordinary Meeting, August 2, 1898. 



W. L. Cleland, M.B. (President) in the chair. 



Exhibits. — A. Zeitz, Assistant-Director of the Museum, 

 specimen of Leatherjacket (Monacanthus, sp ), with abnormal 

 dorsal spine from St. Vincent's Gulf. Also a blue ruff-heron 

 [Demigrettajugularis) from Wallaroo. It is found in tropical Aus- 

 tralia, but rarely so far south. S. Dixon specimens of telluride 

 ore, carrying 40 per cent, of gold, in schistose rocks from the 

 Kalgurlie Mine, W.A. W. Howchin, F.G.S., gave an interest- 

 ing description of foraminiferal sand, obtained through the 

 kindness of Prof. David, of Sydney, and Mr. Geo. Sweet, of 

 Melbourne, from the Funafuti Atoll, and from the bore put down 

 to test the nature of the underlying rocks. The beach consists 

 largely of nullipore fragments sometimes consolidated into rock 

 masses. The foraminifera are not very abundant in their variety, but 

 form almost the entire mass of the beach sand, and belong to eleven 

 genera, including sixteen species, and present an almost identical 

 facies with those of the fossil fauna of the lower tertiaries of 

 Southern Australia. Organic remains from the bore at 150 feet 

 were scarce ; those from the 400-feet depth were more abundant, 

 particularly amphistegina, which made up the most of the rock 

 materials, and were in each case characteristically of shallow 

 water species, which would seem to indicate subsidence of the 



