28 ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 



many months ago, when I was unable, from ill health, to bring 

 the matter before you. It will be remembered that a public 

 correspondence, in which more than one member of our Society 

 was engaged, took place as to a claim to discovery of an ore of 

 Nickel, and of Chromatc of iron from New Caledonia. I have 

 no intention of imputing any wilful unfairness to the gentlemen 

 who took credit for those discoveries. I suggested at the time 

 that the claim would not have been made had the claimants 

 known the facts of the case ; and I repeat here that I have no 

 intention to impute to them anything unjust or unfair towards 

 the real discoverer, Monsieur G-arnier. In order to show this 

 I propose to give an account, necessarily very brief, of the 

 Geology of New Caledonia, and, in so doing, I shall draw most of 

 my statements from the writings of my friend, who was appointed 

 in August, 1863, by the Marquis de Chasseloup-Laubat, Minister 

 of the French Navy and Colonies, as Engineer-in-Chief over the 

 mines of New Caledonia. An impression existed at the time 

 that the Island was rich in minerals of many kinds, and that an 

 abundant supply of Coal was also to be anticipated. Monsieur 

 Grarnier, finding the latter opinion not likely to be sustainable, 

 determined to devote himself to the more useful employment of 

 defining the formations of the country or their mineralogical 

 conditions. At that time Captain Jouan, of the French Navy, 

 was employed on a Memoir relating to the geological structure 

 of the Loyalty Islands, published in the "Actes de la Societe des 

 Sciences Naturelles, de Cherbourg" a short notice of which is 

 given in the " JRevue de Geologic" of Delesse and Laugel (III. 

 p. 369 701). 



In the " Revue Algerienne et Colon tale" an interesting article 

 was also completed in April, 1860, on New Caledonia, by Father 

 Montrouzier, of Napoleonville (a gentleman well known in this 

 Colony), and in 1863, Monsieur Eugene Deslongchamps read a 

 long and instructive essay, headed "Documents sur la Geologie 

 de la Nouvelle Caledonie," before the Liuna>an Society of 

 Normandy, which was published in the Bulletin of that Society 

 in 1864 {tome 8, p. 332-378), with a description of the fossils 



