REVIEWS 183 



Australasian Fossils. A Student's Manual of Palaeontology. By Frederick 

 Chapman. With an Introduction by Prof. E. W. Skeats. [Pp. 341. 

 Illustrated.] (Melbourne : G. Robertson & Co., 1914.) 



STUDENTS of palaeontology in Australia and New Zealand have hitherto had to 

 contend with the disadvantage that the text-books on their science are mainly 

 written either from the European or the American standpoint, and consequently 

 take but scant notice of Australasian formations and fossils. To a certain degree 

 this is undoubtedly a hindrance to local workers, and it has accordingly been 

 deemed that the time has come to collect and arrange in a handy form the main 

 facts of the subject as exemplified from the Australasian point of view. The 

 result is the admirable little volume now before us, the author of which, from his 

 official position as palaeontologist to the National Museum at Melbourne, enjoys 

 special and unrivalled opportunities for undertaking a task of this nature. 



Not only will the volume stimulate workers in Australia and New Zealand, but 

 it will likewise have a very considerable value to workers in this country as an 

 up-to-date sketch of the leading facts in Antipodean palaeontology. The Austra- 

 lasian student may, however, be reminded that the publication of Mr. Chapman's 

 volume does not by any means imply that palaeontological and geological works 

 written from the European standpoint are to be permanently shelved, and that 

 he will find all he wants in the local text-book. As the author himself would 

 doubtless be the first to acknowledge, precisely the contrary is the case ; and 

 since the British rock series, with its included fossils, is the typical basis for the 

 geology and palaeontology of the world in general, students in all quarters of the 

 globe must always make this their starting-point and standard of sequence. 



In connection with this sequence of strata in Europe and the Antipodes certain 

 very important and interesting remarks are made in the Introduction by Prof. 

 Skeats with regard to the late Prof. Huxley's doctrine of " homotaxis." Through- 

 out the world there is no exception to the rule that strata containing Devonian 

 and Carboniferous fossils overlie those of a Silurian type, and that Palaeozoic 

 are succeeded by Mesozoic formations, and these again by beds of Tertiary age. 

 But it has long been a question whether, let us say, the Silurian and Devonian 

 strata of Australia or Africa were strictly contemporaneous with the typical 

 European representatives of those strata. Huxley was strongly disposed to 

 consider that they were not, basing his opinion on the supposition that the 

 migration of one fauna — say the Silurian — from one area to the other would occupy 

 such a long period of time that when it reached its new habitat the succeeding 

 Carboniferous fauna would have developed in the original area. Consequently, 

 if this were so, a Devonian fauna and flora in Britain might have co-existed with 

 those of Silurian age in North America, and with Carboniferous forms of life in 

 Africa. 



But, remarks Prof. Skeats, " this could only be true if the time taken for the 

 migration of faunas and floras was so great as to transcend the boundaries between 

 great geological periods. This does not appear to be the case, and Huxley's 

 idea in its extreme form has consequently been generally abandoned." Hence 

 we may now regard at least some of the Silurian fossils of Australia as being the 

 actual contemporaries of their European namesakes. 



Commencing with a discussion on the nature ol fossils, the means by which 

 these are preserved, their various modes of occurrence, and the characters and 

 sequence of the rocks in which they are embedded, Mr. Chapman includes in 

 this portion of the volume a table showing the correlation between the geological 



