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TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. vie 
2. The Physical Geography of the Entrance to Inverness Firth. 
By A. G. Oatnyvi. 
3. Spitsbergen Economically Considered. 
By Dr. W. S. Brucs, F.R.S.E. 
4. On Australia. By Professor J. W. Grecory, F.R.S. 
Australia, the great island continent, owes its chief characteristics to its 
antiquity and its long isolation. It is essentially built of a series of plateaus, 
which form the Highlands of Eastern Australia and the great western plateau. 
They are united by wide lowland plains, which cross the continent from north to 
south. The western plateau has an even surface due to peneplanation in middle 
Kainozoic times, aided by wind action. The Eastern Highlands are more 
complex, as the plateau has been broken up by many sunklands and dissected by 
deep river gorges. The mountain system is independent of recent folding, and 
there are no fold mountains. The ‘ Cordillera’ are dissected highlands, and are 
not comparable in structure to the chains of the Andes. The Eastern High- 
lands are bounded to the east by the fractures which lowered the former con- 
tinuation of the land below the Pacific. 
Owing to its continental size Australia has great diversity in character, and 
ranges from tropical to temperate. Its political geography is dominated by the 
contrast of the arid interior and the well watered coastlands. 
Resources.—The development was first pastoral; its mineral wealth depends 
mainly on gold and coal, with some copper, lead, silver, tin, &c. Its main 
wealth now comes from its pastoral and agricultural industries and the indus- 
trial development dependent on them. 
The aboriginal inhabitants are more akin to Caucasians than to Negroes or 
Mongols, Their numbers were always small, and they are of no serious political 
Bye creances they present no difficulty to the attainment of the ideal of a White 
Australia, 
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16. 
Joint Meeting with Section A, 
The following Papers were read :— 
(i) The Accuracy of the Principal Triangulation. 
By Captain WInNTERBOTHAM, 
The Principal Triangulation of the United Kingdom was begun in 1783. 
Mean date of execution, 1825. Instruments used, 3-ft., 2-ft., and 18-inch Theo- 
dolites. Mean length of side, 35°4 miles. Probable error of an angle 1/23 
2 
2 x 6745); 
The whole figure adjusted in 21 parts, of which 4 were independent. 
Horizontal distances depend on a ‘ Mean Base,’ got by applying corrections 
to the measured lengths of the two bases, Lough Foyle and Salisbury Plain, 
proportional to the square root of the lengths, in such a manner that the calcu- 
lated length of each from the other agrees with the corrected measured length. 
The mean probable error of an angle for all other national systems reported 
in the 1892 report of the International Geodetic Association (by General Ferrero) 
is 0/8, 
Two factors omitted in General Ferrero’s formula are the strength of the 
various figures and the mean lengths of the sides. 
Judged purely by the probable error of an angle calculated from Ferrero’s 
(General Ferrero’s formula 
