4 President's Address 



and are thus preferable to geological conceptions of a purely 

 speculative character. 



Professor M'Coy, at the February meeting, announced the 

 discovery in Australia of Enaliosauria and other cretaceous 

 fossils, thus establishing the fact — of immense geological im- 

 portance — of the existence of the cretaceous period on the 

 Australian continent. 



A description of a fine specimen of rubellite or red tourma- 

 lin, found for the first time in Victoria in a mine at Maldon, 

 was read by the Rev: Dr. Bleasdale, at our July meeting. 



An account of some bone-caves at Glenorchy, in Tasmania, 

 contributed by Mr. Wintle, of Hobart Town, was also read 

 on the same evening. 



Turning to the papers having reference to natural history. 

 At the first meeting of the session, Professor M'Coy 

 described three new species of Victorian birds, and at the 

 September meeting he contributed a paper " On the Species 

 of Wombats," in which he showed us that until very re- 

 cently only one species of wombat was known to zoolo- 

 gists, The Phascolomys wombat, but that the existence of 

 four species, which he described, may now be considered as 

 demonstrated. 



At the meeting in May, an elaborate paper " On the 

 Australian Coleoptera," was presented to the Society by 

 that renowned naturalist, Count de Castelnau. It contains 

 descriptions of a large number of new Australian beetles, 

 and forms a most valuable contribution to entomological 

 science. 



Of the two papers which I have classed as pertaining to 

 physical science, one was read at the February meeting, by 

 Mr. G. W. Groves, and was entitled " Contributions - to 

 Meteorology." The other was a description of a new self- 

 registering electrometer, which I had the honour of reading 

 at the last meeting of the session. This description referred 



