ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 41 



for geological and palaeontological investigation. And when we 

 remember that in these formations there have been already opened 

 practically inexhaustable stores of nearly all the minerals that 

 are of economic value, should we not be inspired with that zeal 

 for discovery which the exploration of a new country always 

 creates 1 and is not this zeal increased at the foresight of the 

 establishment of commercial industries which such discovery 

 promotes, and upon which the prosperity of the colony depends 1 

 This is no visionary prospect. The late Rev. W. B. Clarke fore- 

 told the importance of his discovery of gold many years before 

 Messrs. Hargreaves, Lister, and Tom, practically demonstrated, in 

 1851, the occurrence of the precious metal in quantity at Lewis 

 Ponds — a discovery which then set alight that unextinguishable 

 fire of enthusiasm in mining and commercial enterprise, which, 

 with increasing vitality, is manifested again and again, and 

 especially so at the present time, when the recent discoveries of 

 silver are fascinating the minds of many. The assurance of our 

 venerated geologist was founded upon a knowledge of the 

 geological character of the country. 



Sir Roderic Murchison also, from rock specimens sent from here 

 to England, identified the existence of formations similar to the 

 auriferous rocks of the Ural Mountains, and in 1844 urged the 

 unemployed miners of Cornwall to emigrate to Australia to search 

 for gold. 



We all know how the marvellously rich discoveries of gold, 

 amounting to .£36,863,717, have since sustained those geological 

 deductions; and the examinations made by the officers of the 

 Geological Surveys of New South Wales and of the other colonies 

 reveal the fact that though the more easily worked shallow alluvial 

 deposits and deep leads have hitherto afforded the principal supplies 

 of gold and are far from being exhausted, yet the auriferous 

 formations with their dykes and reefs, from the denudation of which 

 the alluvial gold has been chiefly derived, are of immense extent, 

 (in this colony alone at least 70,000 square miles) and their 



