lias been given by Samoilowx the most misleading name of Paleo- 
pbysiology, a name which I trust will soon pass out of use in favour 
of one more truly significant. The science deals with the origin 
and development of those minerals in whose history animal or 
vegetable organisms have played an important, part as primary or 
later concentrating agents. Its practical application is likely to 
Jio in the assistance it will render in the search for new deposits 
of certain economic minerals, such for example as apatite and 
eelesfife (strontium sulphate), and iti the economical exploitation 
of such deposits, since it. will soon be possible in the light, of the 
new facts of this science for the prospector and miner in such in- 
stances to profit to a very considerably greater degree than hereto- 
fore from the historical, palaeontological and structural data 
collected by the field geologist. 
The foundations of this branch of science wore laid many years 
ago, when the relationship was first established between economic- 
al l v important beds of limestone and the power© possessed by 
corals, echincids and other marine organisms of extracting from 
sea. water and secreting again in their skeletal systems the carbonate 
of lime present in such a diluted form in the waters of the ocean. 
But for the primary concentrating power of such organisms our 
supplies of lime compounds of all kinds would be infinitely more 
difficult to obtain than they are at present. With, the present 
abundance of ealeite of sufficient purity for most of our demands 
there is, however, no urgent call for the scientific investigation of 
the many organic sources of ealeite and aragonite and of the history 
of their development into commercial deposits. 
Another section of this science to which in the past a good 
deal of attention has been paid is the origin and history of our 
available phosphate deposits. Here w o are, however, immediately 
on a different footing to what, we were in the case of ealeite, whether 
from a standpoint of scientific interest, of economic importance, of 
complexity and multiplicity of the chemical changes involved and 
final products resulting, or of discontinuity in the data available. 
No exposition of the facts of this series of chemical reactions 
approaching anything like completeness has ever been published, 
nor will be for many years to come. Yet consider one small prac- 
tical application of such a complete mass of data accompanied by 
reasoned deductions and generalisations. In Western Australia 
we are in constant need of a cheap supply of phosphates suitable 
for agricultural purposes. To the north of Perth is an immense 
area of rocks which at several points exhibit, outcrops of natural 
phosphates either slightly too poor or too insoluble to use under 
present conditions. The stratigraphy of the region is not obscure, 
but without the necessary knowledge of the past methods of form- 
ation and accumulation of the phosphate minerals, we are at an 
absolute loss where to look within this region for higher grade and 
