INAUGURAL ADDRESS 
\ BY THE 
HON. A. C. GREGORY, C.M.G., 
PRESIDENT, 
BRISBANE, SATURDAY , 12 th JANUARY , 1895. 
+ 
The acceptance of the honourable position of president of such 
^ an important body as the Australasian Association for the Advance- 
'll ment of Science involves the responsible duty of delivering a presi- 
dential address, and the difficulty of selecting a suitable subject is 
1 greatly increased by an exhaustive treatment of many branches of 
research by the gifted members of the association at its previous 
meetings, while I am satisfied that there can scarcely be a branch of 
Ej science in which some of those present at this meeting are not more 
^ eminently qualified to instruct me than I am of adding to their stores 
; : of information. Under these conditions, the subject chosen is, 
u 
i- 
? THE GEOGRAPHICAL HISTORY OF THE AUSTRALIAN 
CONTINENT DURING ITS SUCCESSIVE PHASES OF 
GEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT, 
the reason being that it affords an opportunity for recording results 
of a personal inspection of a larger proportion of our territory than 
usually falls to the lot of a single individual, and there is the further 
advantage that the skeleton outline will afford ample scope for my 
more gifted colleagues, each in his own province, to correct errors and 
fill in details. 
PRIMARY CONDITION AND FORM OF LAND. 
In dealing with the geological history of Australia, it is con- 
venient to refer to the groups of formation, as the scope of this 
address is insufficient for the separate consideration of the component 
members of each group which lias taken prominent part in the 
geographical establishment of sea and land. Like all histories of 
remote events, the evidence of what was the primary condition and 
form of the land is necessarily of very limited character, but some 
evidence does remain for our guidance. The earliest indications of 
the existence of land within the limit of the present Australian 
A 
