PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 23 



memoir of the broadest scientific value, foreshadowing, 

 though not perhaps, recording much of the work which has 

 been evolved during the last twenty-five years of more 

 detailed research. 



I draw attention more particularly to Daintree's labours 

 because it constitutes the keystone of the monumental 

 work which was performed by Robert Logan Jack and 

 Robert Etheridge, Jnr, "The Geology and Palaeontology 

 of Queensland, 1892," and lias since been added to, and we 

 trust will continue to be, by the labours of the Geological 

 Survey of Queensland. 



Daintree was helped by Robert Etheridge, Senior, and 

 William Oarruthers in the examination of the animal and 

 vegetable fossils respectively. These authors were satisfied 

 with classifying the fossiliferous beds above the Palaeozoic 

 beds as of Mesozoic age. This was certainly a correct 

 general observation, but when we consider that the 

 sequence of fresh water and marine sedimentation repre- 

 sents a thickness of from 3,500 to 4,500 feet, it must be 

 realised that there is room for the assumption that notice 

 of the time limit of sedimentation must be taken into 

 account. 



Certainly Daintree appreciated the fact that the fresh 

 water beds now known as the Ipswich Coal Measures were 

 the lowest in the Series. He also realised the fact that 

 what he termed the Cretaceous was divisible into two 

 series, or as we term them now, formations, the Lower or 

 "Rolling Downs," and an Upper or "Desert Sandstone." 

 This was a most natural subdivision to be adopted by a 

 pioneer, who not only was hampered by the lack of com- 

 munication, but also was influenced by the absence of 

 adequate maps. In many cases the geologists of that time 

 had to determine their positions by their own astronomical 

 observations, and we find now that Daintree's classification 



