30 ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 



has not been fully explored. Its economic productions of the 

 finest building stones and brick and pottery clay shales are of 

 great value, as the fine public buildings in the city will testify : 

 its geological characteristics and palaeontological treasures are of 

 special interest ; though these have for many years engaged the 

 attention of geologists it is but recently that from the rocks of 

 Gosford one of the finest collections of fossil fishes has been 

 brought to light : while, about the same time, the important 

 discovery was made of Labyrinthodon remains, which have been 

 described by Professor W. J. Stephens, M.A., and figured in the 

 Proceedings of the Linnean Society. These with similar recent 

 discoveries in the lacustrine Wianamatta shales justify 

 anticipations of further finds of interest. 



The next series of strata requiring investigation are those of 

 the so-called Cretaceous age. I say " so-called " for they have 

 been only provisionally assigned to the Cretaceous period, as a 

 portion of the series, notably in Western Australia, may be of 

 Jurassic age ; as yet very little is known about them. They 

 occupy some 40,000 square miles in New South Wales and nearly 

 if not quite half the Australian continent, so that they afford 

 an immense area for examination. They are of great economic 

 importance ; for the strata composing them offer favourable 

 conditions for the occurrence of artesian water, which has been 

 proved, not only in this colony but also in Queensland and South 

 Australia, in bores varying from 110 to 1600 feet deep, splendid 

 water issuing from these, and flowing freely from the pipes, in 

 one instance at a height of 60 feet above the surface of the 

 ground. 



Artesian water in this formation was first obtained by Mr. 

 David Brown in 1880, in bores put down close to some 

 "mud springs" which are natural artesian springs on Kallara 

 Station, in the Darling District. Observing from the Geological 

 Map, by the Rev. W. B. Clarke, that this formation extends 

 almost throughout the North Western portion of the colony, I, in 

 conjunction with Messrs. Gilliat and Bruce in 1880, advised the 



