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such a permanent way that its source and destination can at once 
be found. All the specimens are forwarded to Mr. R. Etheridge, 
the highest recognised authority on Australian fossils, who acts 
gratuitously in the capacity of Palaeontologist to the Survey. 
This gentleman has enriched geological literature with his reports 
on the collections which have been sent to him from time to time, 
and which have appeared in our series of palaeontological contri- 
butions to the geology of the State. 
Other contributions are from the pen of Mr. Howchin, of the 
University of Adelaide, whose detailed descriptions of the Fora- 
minifera of the chalk of Gingin make an important addition to 
the knowledge of a group of organisms to which but little local 
attention has as yet been paid. 
Valuable work has been done by Mr. Chapman, of the 
National Museum, Melbourne : his investigation of the fossils 
of the Collie River Coal Measures has gone a long way towards 
solving the vexed question of the geological age of the series. 
Mr. Newell Arber, the well-known palaeobotanistl has de- 
scribed the plant remains from the Jurassic Beds of the Champion 
Bay district, which has enabled a correlation to.be effected with 
their probable stratigraphical equivalents in Queensland, viz., 
the plant-bearing beds of Talgai, Darling Downs, and Rosewood, 
near Rockhampton. 
Dr. Geo. J. Hinde’s, F.R.S., researches in connection with 
the fossil sponge spicules from the so-called Deep Lead at Norse- 
man is perhaps one of the most important of our additions to the 
Palaeontology of the State, and to which reference will be made 
later on. 
Finally, my colleague, Mr. Glauert, has drawn up a list of 
Western Australian fossils, stratigraphically and geologically 
arranged, to facilitate the work of the Survey, but which will 
meet a much-felt want at the hands of all workers in, and students 
of Australian Geology. 
The Geological Collection at present contains twenty-one 
type fossils, i.e., the identical individual specimens from which 
species have been described. 
Geological Museum. 
One of the most essential instructional portions of the equip- 
ment of the Geological Survey is its museum, in which the various 
rocks, minerals, and fossils collected by the staff in the ordinary 
course of its duties, or acquired by purchase, or donation, are 
exhibited for the convenience of the staff and for the benefit and 
instruction of the general public. The Survey Collection at pre- 
sent numbers 10,912 specimens. 
It was after careful consideration decided by the Government 
that the small National Geological Collection previously in the 
hands of the Museum Committee, should be taken over and the 
collection combined with that belonging to the Survey, and the 
