Nov. 9, 1888.] 



SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



491 



by Mr. Charles A. Smith, F.I.C., F.C.S. An interesting 

 discussion followed, in which the president, secretary, and Mr. 

 Pond took part. 



Mr. John Mingaye, F.C.S. , assayer to the Mines Department, 

 read a paper on Disc&very of Tellurium in New South Wales, in 

 certain Bismuth Ores, found near Captain's Flat. 



Mr. Pond announced the fact that he had found tellurium in 

 New Zealand in the year 1885, in silver ores, through the sugges- 

 tion of Sir James Hector, in examining some minerals. He 

 thought that Mr. Mingaye had omitted to note the date of the 

 discovery. 



Dr. Leibius suggested that a paper on Mr. Pond's research 

 would be valuable, and this was promised for a future meeting. 



Mr. Hamlet read a paper, in the absence of the author, by 

 Mr. Edgar Hall, F.C.S., of the Sunny Corner Silver Mine, on 

 Silver Smelting, Rich Silver Mattes, and their Treatment, and on 

 Kernel Roasting. 



Mr. Pond, in discussing the paper, said that if the section had 

 done nothing more than produce this one paper it had done 

 valuable work. He thought the matter was so important and the 

 treatment so original that it ought to be published in the proceed- 

 ings. A lengthy discussion followed, in which the secretary, Dr. 

 Rennie, Dr. Leibius, and the president took part. 



Mr. W. A. Dixson read a paper on Some Considerations in 

 regard to the Formation of Coal. He said that the examination of 

 some coal from New Zealand and the other colonies had led him 

 to the conclusion that the chief differences in coals were due to the 

 original formation of the vegetable of which they were composed. 

 The best ligno-cellulose was largely composed, originally, of resin 

 from vegetation, and cannel coal, appeared to be derived from adipo- 

 cellulose mixed with ligno-cellulose. 



A paper was also read by Mr. Hamlett, for Mr. F. Ratte, on 

 Some Means of Popularising the Study of Crystallography. 



Other papers read were : — On The Occurrence of Silver in the Lodes 

 of the Cape Colville Peninsula, 7 hames, No. 2, by Mr. Pond, 

 Government Analyst, Auckland, New Zealand. On the Dissolved 

 Matter contained in Rain Water collected at Lincoln, New Zealand, 

 by Mr. George Gray, F.G.S. On the Origin of Vein-Gold and the 

 Growth of Nuggets, by Professor Black. A Contribution to the 

 Solution of the Problem — How Gold came into the Reefs ? by Mr. J. 

 R. Don, M.A. (1) Notes on the Proposed Chemical Laboratory, 

 University of Sydney, (2) Notes on Some New South Wales Minerals, 

 (3), Notes on Moss Gold, by Professor Liversidge, M.A., F. R. S. 

 Gola, its Formation in our Reefs, with Notes of some of its Newly - 

 Dis covered Reactions, by Mr. W. Skey. Notes on the Composition of 

 New South Wales Fahlerz and Embolite, by Dr. G. S. Mackenzie. 

 Bibliography of the Chemistry of Lndigenous Australian Vegetable 

 Products, by Mr. J. H. Maiden, F.L.S , F.G.S. ; On the Action of 

 Nepean Water on Tubes and Boiler Plates, by Mr. Hamlet. 



Section C. — Geology and Palaeontology. 



The President, Mr. Jack, F.G.S., delivered his presidential 

 address on Some Salient Features in the Geology of Queensland, He 

 said that it seemed to him that some vague term, such as " Devo- 

 nian," would best express the present state of their knowledge of a 

 great part of the region hitherto regard ad as "paleozoic." Their 

 know'edge was extremely fragmentary, for it had been shown that 

 formations of widely different dates may, under similar conditions 

 of disturbance andpressure, assume the same lithological character- 

 istics ; one portion, for instance, may be a goldfield and another 

 part a coalfield. He thought they would have to look for help in 

 unravelling the structure of Queensland to the workers in other 

 lands and to such meetings as the present. 



Mr. S. H. Cox, F.C.S., F.G.S., read a paper on The Develop- 

 ment of Mining in Australasia. He said that as regards gold, by far 

 the greater returns had been obtained from alluvial deposits. In 

 early days, when alluvial gold was easily got, the deposits in some 

 cases were surprisingly rich. The large returns in Victoria during 

 the period from 1852 to 1862 were of gold almost exclusively 

 alluvial. In those days men squandered their money in a reckless 

 manner. There was one instance on record of a man having his 

 horses shod with gold when a successful member of Parliament was 

 brought into the town. The same individual was reported to have 

 spent £200 in drink for the men every time he visited the claim. 

 The copper ores, which had hitherto been worked in Australia, 

 appear to have been always associated with rocks of the Silurian 

 age. From a productive point of view, the collieries were no doubt 

 steadier-paying mines than the metalliferous ones, although there 

 were no sensational returns ; nor was the value of the coal raised so 

 high as would be anticipated by the stress which is frequently laid 

 upon the value of the coal-mining, industry. Australia was essen- 



tially a mining country, and was a place where all classes of ores 

 are to be found. It was a country which offered every inducement 

 for the further development of its resources. There was no doubt 

 that they had every source of wealth, but the future of Australia 

 was very largely dependent on the minerals raised. There was, 

 perhaps, no part of the world where the valuable ores are so evenly 

 distributed throughout the ground, but the success of the mining 

 industry would greatly depend upon the skill that is brought to bear 

 upon the extraction of the mineral and the treatment of the ores. 



Mr. A. W. Howitt read a paper on the Metamorphic Rocks of 

 Gippsland. His deductions were to the effect that the rocks referred 

 to were clearly connected with the vast earth movements which 

 occurred at the close of the Silurian age. 



The Rev. J. E. Tenison-Woods read a paper on the Desert 

 Sandstone of Australia. He said that the term " Desert sandstone " 

 had been loosely applied in Australasia. He considered that the 

 whole formation belonged to the tertiary period, but differed much 

 in point of age. 



Mr. T. W. Edgeworth David read a paper on the Origin oj 

 the Laterite in the Vegetable Creek District of New South Wales. 

 He said that the term " laterite," as used, is defined as a rock con- 

 sisting of silicate of alumina and peroxide of iron. The colour is of 

 a prevailing brick red, passing into ocherous, and the rock shows 

 every gradation from a soft ferruginous clay, resembling lithomarge, 

 to a hard pisolitic ironstone. Laterite is found in New South 

 Wales, associated with the basalts and auriferous and stanniferous 

 gravels of the tertiary age. Mr. C. S. Wilkinson has described this 

 rock as " a sandy concretionary ironstone, which sometimes assumes 

 a pisolitic structure." At Emmaville, in the Vegetable Creek 

 district, the laterite has a thickness of from a few feet to 40 ft., and 

 occurs in oval patches from half-a-mile to two miles wide, situated 

 chiefly at the sources of the lava sheets, and forming the material of 

 which a number of small basaltic craters are composed. Some of 

 these craters retain so much of their original shape as to leave no 

 doubt as to their true nature, while others have suffered so much 

 from denudation as to preserve no vestige of their original crater 

 rings. In two places at Vegetable Creek cavernous spaces 2jft. 

 high and several chains wide were found to separate the under 

 surface of the laterite from the underlying decomposed basalt. 

 These are compared to the lava caves at Laurel Hill, near Tumbe- 

 rumba, New South Wales, and to those described by Darwin in 

 islands of the Galapagos Archipelago. The conclusion is that the 

 greater part of the laterite is an altered basalt tuff belonging to 

 the earlier basalt eruptions, of Eocene age, or possibly to a time 

 intermediate between that of the older and newer basalts. Thai 

 water has played an important part in altering the tuffs, and 

 possibly in redistributing them is proved by the occurrence, though 

 exceptional, of small fragments of plants intermixed with the laterite, 

 and of lenticular beds of limonite occupying local depressions on 

 its surface. 



Papers were also read by Professor Tate, on the Secondary Rocks 

 of Lake Eyre Basin, The Census of the Older Tertiary Fauna of 

 Australia, and Glacial Phenomena in South Australia ; by Mr. H. 

 T. L. Brown, on the Mesozoic Plains of South Australia ; by Pro- 

 fessor Hutton, On the Rocks of the Thames Goldfelds, U.L. ; by Mr. 

 F. W. Edgeworth David, B.A., F.R.G.S., on Micropetographical 

 Notes on some of the Hydrothermal Rocks of New South Wales, and 

 On the Copper Shales of the Passage Beds between the Hawhesbury 

 Series and the Upper Coal Measures of New South Wales ; by Mr. 

 H. T.Wilkinson, J. P., on The Geology and Physical Geography of 

 Norfolk Island; by Mr. T. Mitchell, on The Geological Sequence 

 of the Bowring Beds. Other papers were read on On the Advisa- 

 bility of Establishing a Mining Institute in New South Wales, 

 especially from a Geological Point of View, by Mr. F. Ratte ; On the 

 Discovtry of Fossils at Rockhampton, by Mr. James Smith, F.G.S. ; 

 How Far can Australian Geologists safely Rely upon the Order of Suc- 

 cession of the Characteristic Genera of Fossil Plants of afar Distant 

 Region, in the Determination of the Order and Relationship of 

 Australian Terrestrial Formations? by Mr. R. M. Johnson, F.L.S. ; 

 On Certain Boulders met with in the Beds and Reefs of the Gympie 

 Goldfield, by Mr. W. H. Rands ; and On Metamorphism, and the 

 Rocks of the Bathurst District, by Mr. W. J. Clunies Ross, B.Sc. 



Section D.— Biology. 

 The President, Professor Ralph Tate, F.G.S., delivered the 

 presidential address, taking for his subject The Influence of 

 Physiographic Changes on the Distribution of_ Life in Australia. 

 The address consisted of an account of the influence of certain 

 changes in the conformation of the land, and the distribution of 

 land and water with concomitant and resultant changes of climate 

 which have probably taken place in the later geological periods Qn 



