4 
President’s Address. 
Owing to the strain on the energies of the members 
of the Society, _ produced by the harassing details of the 
Exploration affairs, the number of papers read at our meetings 
last year was not so large as in some former ones, but several 
of great interest were read, and interesting discussions 
followed. 
At our first ordinary Meeting, which took place in June, 
a highly suggestive paper was read by Mr. R. Brough 
Smyth, “ On the Advisableness of Collecting and Exhibiting 
in Europe the Mineral and other Products of the Colony,” 
and in it the probable good effect of such exhibitions of a 
permanent kind in England and on the Continent in pro- 
moting emigration of persons skilled in developing or using 
such materials, as well as by attracting the attention of 
capitalists and manufacturers to our products, were dwelt 
on with much force. 
At the same meeting, Dr. Macadam read a paper on 
“ Dalton’s Views on the Atomic Theory,” which gave rise to 
a lengthened discussion on the modern theories on the sub- 
ject, in the course of which some new lines of investigation 
were suggested by other Members. 
At the October meeting following, Mr. Daintree read a 
paper entitled, “ Geological Notes made during a Three 
Months’ Leave of Absence on the Upper Burdekin, Queens- 
land,” in which he made known a belt of Silurian (he believed 
Upper Silurian) rocks extending from Brisbane to near 
Broad Sound ; the strike of the beds was nearly parallel with 
the sea coast, and the general dip, at a high angle, was to the 
North East. The Maryborough and Rockhampton beds were 
considered to be on about one geological level, but the goldfields 
of Canoona were supposed to be older, or lower in the series, as 
were also the beds extending South West from Maryborough. 
Mr. Daintree suggested the probable extension of aurifer- 
ous land between those points. Beds of the same age were 
also noted at Mount Caroline, Perry’s Ranges, Upper Bur- 
dekin, with a South West dip, representing the gold beds of 
Peak Downs, and forming the West side of an anticlinal axis, 
of which the Canoona and Maryborough beds might be the 
eastern bend. The coast ranges from Broad Sound North 
to Mount Elliot are composed of granite, and it is only 
through this rock that the gold drift streams of the district 
run. A recent Basalt covers the greater part of the country 
between the 19th and 20th parallels of latitude, having 
