89 



2. The agency of man. In the days of wooden vessels pitch 

 •was always carried on board as an essential article for repairs, 

 &c., and would no doubt be often lost at sea from various causes, 

 just as stray pieces of coal are washed up at intervals all along 

 the coast ; its low specific gravity being favorable to its wide 

 distribution. Its occurrence inland can be explained by the old 

 sealers and whalers carrying it inland to their homes, and from 

 its friable nature dropping small pieces by the way. It may be 

 doubted, however, whether such an explanation satisfies all the 

 facts of the case. 



(3) A third explanation may be sought in the fragments being 

 sea borne and far travelled. This supposition gathers v/eight 

 from the considerations that the material has an odour and plia- 

 bility which distinguishes it from the commercial article ; whilst 

 its wide distribution, including the entire southern sea board of 

 South Australia, is difficult to explain on the grounds either of 

 local origin or loss at sea. So extensive an occurrence requires a 

 distributing agent operating on a grand scale, such as ocean 

 currents. A point of considerable interest in this view of the 

 subject is the association of lumps of fossil resin with the bitu- 

 minous material, the two classes of substances occurring in the 

 same localities and under the same conditions of distribution. 

 There is a high probability that they have been transported from 

 a common source. The erosion of river banks, or the operation 

 of waves on cliffs, in which these substances are contained, would 

 set them free ; and on account of their low specific gravity would 

 be easily floated and carried to great distances when brought 

 •within the influence of oceanic currents. The great antarctic 

 •outflow towards lower latitudes impinges on the southern shores 



■ of Australia, and follows an easterly direction through Bass 

 Strait and southern coast of Tasmania to New Zealand. This 

 precludes the idea that the bituminous and resinous minerals 

 have travelled hence from New Zealand. The trend of the 



■ oceanic drift which reaches our southern shores takes in Kergue- 

 len and other islands of the southern sea in its course, and it may 

 be found that these waifs of the sea may have had their origin in 

 these distant islands. In Kerguelen poor seams of coal are 

 known to exist, as well as fossilifercus beds, which the late Pro- 

 fessor Ralph Tate determined by their molluscan fauna to be of 

 Tertiary age. These two geological factors give some plausi- 

 bility to the view that the sea-borne materials may have been 

 derived from such a source. I regret that the resinous samples 

 have not been subjected to such an analysis as might enable us to 

 place them in comparison with similar substances from well- 

 known localities. 



