ANNITEESAET ADDEESS. 37 



" I have tried to rouse the Australian Colonies, through their 

 Agents here, to combine and build a permanent Annexe, worthy 

 of our place in the scale of Nations, but ' no instructions ' is the 

 universal reply. 



" Oh, for a 'forty-parson power' to revive the inert mass of 

 slumbering politicians in Australia. However, plucky little 

 Queensland, in the meantime, goes in for an Annexe of her 

 own. ^ ^ ^. ^ Where there's a will there's a way, and it 

 shall go hard with me if I do not make it a success.* 



" As soon as those specimens of yours, which are being figured, 

 are completed, I AviU send them back. 



" This applies to the Don Eiver series especially." 



OPALS. 



My final reference to Queensland will be a mere mention of 

 the discovery in 1870 of the Precious Opal, of which some speci- 

 mens were shoMTi in the Exhibition just closed. They have been 

 collected from a hill in Secondary rock, near the head of Bulla 

 Creek — a water running to and losing itself in the flat country 

 south of the Barcoo, and on the dividing ridge separating the 

 Langlo and Paroo E-ivers from the heads of the Hope, "Woroolah, 

 and Gowen Creeks, which flow towards the Barcoo. 



The opal is distributed in thin veins and plates through a 

 brownish and partly calcareous shale (much hardened), and under 

 conditions that lead me to suppose it was originated in silicious 

 waters, probably warm ; and not far from that district there now 

 occur numerous water cones, or springs, forming a deposit at the 

 lips of the openings from which they rise. As opal only difters from 

 ordinary quartz by the presence of water of composition, it ia not 

 strange that the opal' should simulate in this instance the mode 

 of quartz-veins of a certain class. Whether this mineral will 

 become a profitable afl"air is at present doubtful ; but it 

 deserves notice on the present occasion. Two specimens of 



* This pledge has been, according to late English journals, well redeemed. 

 It will, it is hoped, have a good effect on this and the other Colonies. 

 {August, 1872.) 



