PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 11 



important monograph of the Archaeocyathinae has been 

 completed by Mr. J. Griffith Taylor of Sydney, but now in 

 residence at Cambridge, England. These ancient fossils of 

 obscure affinities form extensive "coral reefs" in the 

 Cambrian deposits of South Central Australia. In the 

 heart of Australia occurs the greatest palaeozoic reef in the 

 world, while the greatest of modern reefs extend along 

 the shore. ■ 



Dr. Johnstone Stoney aptly tells us that " a theory means 

 a supposition that we hope to be true." Such a theory is 

 that advanced by Mr. Hedley regarding the marsupial fauna 

 of Australia having travelled from its place of origin in the 

 northern hemisphere through South America and the radial 

 prolongations of a lost Antarctic Continent into Tasmania 

 and Australia, Tasmania being regarded as structurally 

 and historically a part of the great Australian Continent. 

 The writer of a charming book on Natural History 1 thus 

 speaks of Mr. Hedley's work: — "A great deal of evidence 

 bearing on the existence of Antarctica could be drawn 

 from the study of other groups, e.g., the Mollusca, which 

 have formed the special study of Mr. Chas. Hedley, of 

 Sydney, himself a convinced believer and advocate of the 

 theory. I have chiefly wished to emphasize certain typi- 

 cally temperate and alpine groups of the southern hemi- 

 spheres, because from them it seems to me, that the 

 strongest evidence is to be obtained, and perhaps the most 

 interesting development of the future will be the working 

 out of the invertebrate animals of the Andes from this 

 point of view." And this brings me by easy and natural 

 transition to the splendid work accomplished by the British 

 Antarctic Expedition of 1907-1909 under the renowned 

 leadership of Shackleton, in which our honoured past 



1 A Naturalist in Tasmania, by Geoffrey Smith, Oxford, Clarendon 

 Press, 1909, p. 142. 



