ORDINARY GENERAL MEETING.* 

 Martin L. Rouse, Esq., B.L., in the Chaie. 



The Minutes of the last Meeting were read and confirmed. 



The following elections were announced : — 



Associates : — John Hill Twigg, Esq., M.A. (Dub.), Commissioner, 

 Bengal Civil Service (ret.) ; Rev. William Charles Penn, M.A., 

 Noble College, Masulipatam. 



The following paper was read by the author : — 



ARTESIAN WATER IN THE STATE OF QUEENS- 

 LAND, AUSTRALIA. By R. Logan Jack, LL.D., 

 F.G.S., late Government Geologist of Queensland. 



1. Introductory. 



TO the pastoralists who occnpied the western interior of 

 Queensland, Nature presented a formidable riddle 

 under her familiar sardonic condition of " Solve this or 

 perish ! " Underfoot were illimitable downs covered with 

 the most nutritious grasses, and overhead a pitiless sky 

 which refused to yield, except at long and irregular intervals, 

 moisture enough to fill even these poor remnants of rivers 

 which are known as " waterholes." Sometimes, indeed, the 

 rain came in startling volume, and after such outbursts there 

 might be waterholes enough to last for two or three dry 

 seasons. The Diamantina is a chain of depressions, which 

 may be ridden over, as 1 have done, in clear moonlight 

 without the traveller being aware that he is in the presence 

 of a river. Yet it has, within the memory of man, been fifty 

 miles wide. In other parts, between the goldfield of Croydoa 

 and the Gulf of Carpentaria, I have seen miles of telegraph 



* Monday, January 20th, 1902. 



