for the year 1863. lv 



facilitated by the consolidation of the department of mining 

 statistics, nnder the charge of our newly installed honorary 

 secretary, who had just given an earnest of his desire to ad- 

 vance the mining interests of the colony by his unpretending, 

 yet useful, little pamphlet, The Prospector's Handbook. 



Permit me, in passing, to observe, that on the promotion 

 of our late honorary secretary, Dr. Macadam, to a vice- 

 presidency, your choice could not possibly have fallen on a 

 better qualified or more active successor than Mr. Brough 

 Smyth is proving himself to be. 



The geological survey continues to make progress under 

 the superintendence of Mr. Selwyn, who has recently done 

 much towards the completion of his general examination of 

 the province by a tour through Gipps Land, hitherto a per- 

 fect terra incognita, in a geological point of view. With 

 that keen yet cautious perception of facts which has elicited 

 praise from more competent judges than myself, the Govern- 

 ment geologist of Victoria has taken a rapid coup cl'ceil of the 

 relative positions of the different formations in that important 

 district, and, whilst discovering in abundance, amongst other 

 fossils, those of the Devonian and mountain limestone 

 groups, has satisfied himself of the wide separation in time 

 between these Palaeozoic strata and the contiguous coal 

 measures, in which remains of the Mesozoic flora were long 

 since found. He assures me, in short, that the carboniferous 

 and carbonaceous rocks of Gipps Land dip in contrary 

 directions, and are everywhere perfectly unconformable with 

 each other. 



Though numbering several members of its council in our 

 ranks, it scarcely belongs, perhaps, to this society to chronicle the 

 progress which the Acclimatisation Society of Victoria is making 

 in its self-imposed, yet invaluable, zoological labours. In the 

 kindred domain of botany, the Government botanist is em- 

 ployed as actively as ever, aiding where necessary the in- 



