ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 39 



occurs in the North- Western corner of our own Colony, is still an 

 open question. This great geological area is generally assigned to 

 the Cretaceous Period. Perhaps it would be better to provisionally 

 term it Cretaceo-Jurassic, pending the investigations, which my 

 very general remarks will show there is more than ample room 

 for. Certain it is that Cretaceous rocks do occur throughout the 

 area I have indicated, as evinced by the writings of McCoy, 

 Etheridge, and other authors. In the meantime we may content 

 ourselves by adopting the convenient general term of " Rolling 

 Downs Formation," suggested by Mr. R. L. Jack for so very 

 debatable a series of beds. 



Turn which way we will, there is the same scope for enquiry in 

 every branch of Australian Palaeontology. Just as we noticed 

 many undoubted well established horizons in the Palaeozoic Series, 

 so in the Tertiary we have cognizance, through the long and 

 patient labours of Profs. McCoy and Tait, and the Rev. J. E. 

 Tenison- Woods, of equally well marked sub-divisions, including the 

 marine Oligocene beds of Hobson's Bay, and the Miocene and 

 Pliocene series extending along the Southern Coast of the 

 Continent from the Gippsland Lakes to and beyond the Great 

 Australian Bight. To the student of Palaeontology there are 

 years of study before him, notwithstanding all that has been done 

 in contemplating the relation of the fauna of such deposits to that 

 of the present day, and their correlation with similar forms of 

 life in other lands. In New South Wales and Victoria there is 

 the vast field of enquiry connected with the Paleeophytology of 

 the Deep Auriferous and Stanniferous Leads — one hitherto only 

 touched upon, comparatively speaking, by such eminent botanists 

 as Yon Mueller and Ettingshausen. The investigations of the 

 former have shown the existence in the Pliocene Gold-drifts of a 

 flora containing numerous extinct forms, some of which have 

 living allies. Marine action must have assisted at times in the 

 formation of these drifts, as evinced by the important discovery 

 of fossils made in the Stawell (Vict.) drifts by Messrs. Bernhard 

 Smith and Norman Taylor. This is a most important point, and 



