490 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 



of workers who would take up each his own topographical division after agree- 

 ment on a general plan. Work might well begin upon data for vegetation 

 maps (which ought to be of substantial value not only m the botanical but also 

 in the economic geographical connection), and upon Australia. 



4. The Relalions of the Central Lakcfi of Weslralia. 

 By Professor J. W. Gkegoey, F.R.S. 



The dry lake basins of Western Australia have been represented as hollows 

 due to deflation by wind, to corrosion by ice, or to the action of a former 

 sea. The author has described them as basins left by the dismemberment of a 

 Miocene river system, and in 1914 published a sketch-map illustrating the 

 course of the rivers so far as could be inferred from the levels then avail- 

 able. The issue of the southern sheet of a valuable ' Contour Map of W^estern 

 Australia ' by the Lands Department of that State throws much further 

 light on the relief of the central plateau. According to that map the basins 

 of the group of lakes, including Lakes Raeside, Ballard, Barlee, and Giles, 

 are connected by land below the level of 1,250 feet, and the only outlet from 

 that many-branched depression was south-west through Lake Deborah to the 

 Swan River. According to the author's sketch-map the drainage from Lakes 

 Giles, Barlee, and Ballard passed through Lake Raeside south-eastward to 

 the sea, which once, probably in the Miocene Period, extended from the Great 

 Australian Bight northward over the Nullabor Plains. The accurately 

 determined railway levels from Kalgoorlie to Laverton indicate that the 

 drainage from the Lake Ballard and Lake Raeside group was originally to 

 the south-east. If the existence of the outlet from Lake Ballard through Lake 

 Deborah be confirmed, this channel was probably of later date, and formed 

 owing to the blockage of the south-eastern outlet through wind-borne drifts. 



The Lands Department Contour Map indicates that the drainage from the 

 country around Lake Way and Lake Wells, instead of passing south-eastward 

 to the Nullabor Plains, flowed by a very circuitous route to the north and 

 east of the Mount Margaret Goldfield instead of by the shorter route through 

 the numerous lake basins between Lake Way and the former south-eastern sea. 



The new ' Contour INIap ' and contributions to the physiography of Westralia 

 by Messrs. Gibson and Jutson are in favour of the origin of these dry lakes 

 as remnants of an extinct river svstem. 



The Bitrriiijuclc Dat)i and the Murrunibidgee Irrigation Area. 

 By J. McFarlane.i 



I 



6. The Discovery of Australia. Bij H. Yule Oldham. 



THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9. 



The following- Papers were read : — 



1. Joint Discussion with Section C on the Classification of Land Forms. 

 Opened by J. D. Falconer. 



The investigation of piocesses is the common ground of Geology and 

 (leogra-pliy. Tlie geogra|)lii(al proee.s.ses, however, are less numerou.s tiijin tlie 

 geological, and are studied by geologists and geographers with a diffei'ent 

 purpose. The geologist studies these [jroeesses in order to elucidate the past 

 history of the earth, the geographer in order to systematise the present topo- 

 graphical features of the surface. Geological interest in the geograjihical 



' To be published in Si:uLt. (rcijij. Maij. 



