COUNCIL S REPORT. 



29 



receiving an appointment in the British Museum, In the 

 meantime, his old friend and colleague of Edinburgh, Dr. 

 R. Logan Jack, was appointed Government Geologist to 

 Queensland, and he revived Etheridge's interest in Aus- 

 tralian geology, by forwarding for study extensive collec- 

 tions of fossils from Queensland. Eventually, their part- 

 nership resulted in the production of a large and very 

 important work, "The Geology and Palaeontology of 

 Queensland and New Guinea," which was published in 

 1898, and which has formed the basis of all subsequent 

 geological work in that State. The lure of the south grew 

 more insistent, and yielding to it, Mr, Etheridge returned 

 to Australia in 1887 to fill a dual post in the New South 

 Wales Department of Mines and the Australian Museum. 

 In his former service, he was associated with the late Mr. 

 C. S. Wilkinson, Professor David, Mr. E. F. Pittman, and 

 Mr. J. E. Oarne, who has just retired from the control of 

 the Geological Survey. Mr. Etheridge quickly gathered 

 in from various nations standard geological works, which 

 now form the nucleus of a fine library at the Geological 

 Survey of our Mines Department. He next founded a new 

 serial "The Records of the Geological Survey," and assisted 

 to place our knowledge of the geological formations of the 

 State on a firmer basis. Taking for his special subject, the 

 fossils of the older strata, he published numerous memoirs 

 on that topic. On the retirement of Dr. Ramsay, in 1895, 

 Mr. Etheridge received the appointment of Director of the 

 Australian Museum. He threw his usual vigour into his 

 new occupation. During the twenty-five years of his 

 administration the institution has been greatly enlarged, 

 the collections renovated, enriched and better displayed, 

 and an excellent system of descriptive labels arranged. 

 Under his guidance was initiated the serial production, 

 "The Records of the Australian Museum," and a number 

 of memoirs were produced, dealing with the fauna of this 



