On Absorption. 165 



however, to be very similar in mineral cliaracter, with no 

 great apparent pauses between the eruptions, which came 

 doubtless from the same centre. 



If, as most think, our alluvial diggings are of recent Tei^- 

 tiary times, the superimposed basalt may be more modern 

 than many others. Yet even there has been time for soil 

 for a forest clothing. I have elsewhere alluded to the deep 

 masses of calcareous rock between two beds of Portland 

 basalt. The existence of hundreds of feet of rock, consisting 

 chiefly of the debris of a coralline sea, would assume con- 

 siderable antiquity for the first basalt. 



In New South Wales the basalt is very common in the 

 coal-fields. Count Strzelccki gives four distinct epochs for 

 the Tasmanian basalts. When standing by the celebrated 

 opalized tree, near the Derwent, I observed that deep beds 

 of basalt lay upon a broad sheet of greenstone. If 

 Victoria difiers fr-om Tasmania in its rich deposits of ash, it 

 is inferior to the island beauty in the relative extent and 

 variety of its more consolidated volcanic products. 



In conclusion, if we have no i^ast glories of greatness, like 

 Rome, to associate with our Victorian volcanic rocks, let us 

 build up with them a bright and happy future. A numerous 

 and gladdened peasantry may till our tufa fields. Works of 

 material progress, structures of architectural beauty, haunts 

 of science and the arts, schools of learning, fanes of piety, 

 and homes of free and virtuous citizens, may stand before 

 our children, and our children's children, in the everlasting 

 basalt of our rocks — a type of that stability of being found 

 in truth, in peace, in love. 



Art. V. — Experiments and Observations on Absorption. 

 By George B. Halford, M.D., Professor of Anatomy, 

 Physiology, and Pathology, University of Melbourne. 

 [Read 11th June, 1866.] 



I purpose to lay before the Society the results of some 

 experiments upon the absorption of colouring matters by the 

 living body. It is well known that absorption takes place 

 readily when fluids are thrown into the loose connective 

 tissue beneath the skin, or into the serous cavities, as also 

 from the great mucous tracts extending from the eyelids to 

 the lungs, and from the ears to the anus. From the skin also. 



