ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS, 5 
years a difference of 4 inches of rise between the levels of those 
places has taken place.” And again—‘“ According to Mr. Ellery— 
the accomplished and accurate Williamstown observer, the self- 
registering tide-gauge at that place indicated a rise of the bottom 
of Hobson’s Bay of 4 inches in twelve months, and a deposit of 
recent shells and imbedded bones of sheep and bullocks which had 
been thrown into the bay is now seen at a level above the reach 
of the tides.” Again, quoting from a letter by the late Mr. John 
Kent, of Brisbane :—“ A survey was made of a shelf of rocks in 
Brisbane River in 1842, by Captain Gilmore, Mr. Petrie, and 
myself; and in making a re-survey in 1858 Mr. Roberts found the 
relative depths were singularly correct, but that the general depth 
of water over the shelf of rock had decreased 18 inches in 1 sixteen 
years since the first survey was made.” 
Sir Roderick J. Murchison, in the Proceedings of the Royal 
~Geographical Society of London, vol. vii., page 42, quotes from 
a letter he had received from the late Mr. Kent, of Brisbane :— 
“T have lately drawn the attention of the Rev. W. B. Clarke to 
the fact that the eastern coast of New Holland is rising, at the 
rate of (say) 1 inch per annum, as ascertained by the height of 
rocks in the river Brisbane above tide-levels, through a period of 
twenty years ; and he assures me that to the south the same result 
has been inferred, though the observations have not extended over 
so longa period. At what rate the rise is now going on there 
are no data to establish, Till a series of mean tidal levels are 
marked on the rocks of the harbour, and the alteration made as 
distinct as that in Hobson’s Bay, any deduction as to the rate of | 
rise must be conjectural and unreliable.” I have but taken a few 
extracts from a great mass of evidence which Mr. Clarke brought 
forward in proof of the rapid elevation of the coast of Australia. 
I was deeply interested in this report when it was published in 
1866, and as soon as I had opportunity determined to make such 
observations with a self-registering i as would determine 
the rate of rise (if any) ; and, in collecti ti 
this subject during the past thirteen years, I wrote to Mr. Ellery 
bearing g upon 
