1240 president's address. 



Apart from Natural History considerations, the Geology of the 

 Pleistocene period has perhaps a more immediate and practical 

 bearing upon the future development of a large portion of our 

 territory than that of any other period. From the fact of the 

 old river channels having been silted up and buried beneath 

 alluvial deposits, we may be certain that in the lower portions of 

 the main valleys, and passing under the wide alluvial plains 

 beyond, there exist underground streams of water which, when 

 discovered by systematic exploitation by boring and sinking, may 

 be made available for increasing the pastoral and agricultui-al 

 capabilities of the country. And besides this, where the Pleistocene 

 deposits cover old river channels which have been eroded through 

 auriferous and tin-bearing formations, miners may with confidence 

 expect to find in them payable '* leads." 



At our previous Annual Meeting, I informed you of a deep bore 

 which was being put down in the Cretaceous formation at Tarka- 

 nina in South Australia. It has since been carried to a depth of 

 12-30 feet, when good water was struck, which rose in the bore and 

 flowed from the pipes 20 feet above the surface of the ground. In 

 another diamond drill bore, also in the Cretaceous strata at Hergott 

 in the same colony, water was met with at a depth of 340 feet, and 

 it rose to a height of 60 feet above the surface. As you are 

 already aware, artesian water flowing from the pipes 10 feet above 

 the surface, has been obtained in a bore near Bourke. As the 

 Cretaceous formation extends westward from here almost without a 

 break to the Flinders Range in South Australia, there is little 

 doubt but that artesian wells may be obtained in any part of it, and 

 that this enormous tract of now arid land may be made by proper 

 enterprise a splendidly watered country. 



The occupation of the country under our new land laws, and the 

 settlement of large numbers of people 'm. places like those where 

 the important discoveries of silver have lately been made, will 

 necessitate the improvement of the natural advantages we have 

 indicated ; let us hope that they may be speedily utilised. And 

 may our Society in its scientific sphere continue its labours in 

 revealing the availability of nature's rich stores, for the direct and 



