OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 115 



state of preservation, being mostly imperfect casts ; but amongst 

 them appear to be the following genera : — 



Valuta ma '.ropterU, a small specimen; Voluta anti-cinyidata, Qstrea, 

 Cythertza, Crassatella ? Pecten, Turritella, Natica, Iritoril Dolium! 

 Astarte, Corbula, Lceda, Venus, Cyi^rcea, 2 Echinoderms. 



Most of the above I have found in the Viclorian beds, and two 

 of them have been figured and described by Professor McCoy in 

 his Decade No. 1 of the Palaeontology of Victoria. 



The small specimen of calcareous clay from the Katau River on 

 the west side of the Gulf of Papua contains only a few broken 

 fragments of shells ; but it appears to be of the same formation as 

 the clay beds of Hall's Sound or Yule Island. 



The oolitic limestone of Bramble Bay I believe to be also of the 

 upper beds of this Miocene formation. 



Mr. Macleay, in his letter to the Sydney Morning Herald of 

 October 11, 1875, describes the formation of Yule Island as a sedi- 

 mentary rock, nearly horizontal on the sea face, but with a great 

 dip inwards. The rock itself is calcareous, and composed of corals, 

 shells, echini, &c. — in fact a concrete of fossils resembling the coral 

 rag of Oxford. Mr. D'Albertis also gives a similar description of 

 the formation of Yule Island, and mentions the occurrence of 

 basaltic trap in the valleys, and that the higher portions of the 

 hills, which attain a height of 700 or 800 feet above sea level, are 

 composed of coralline limestone. It is worthy of remark that in 

 Victoria the Miocene strata occur in a similar manner — yellow 

 and blue calcareous clays full of fossil shells, overlaid by thick 

 beds of coralline limestone consisting of an aggregate of commi- 

 nuted fragments of corals, shells, and echinoderms. 



The discovery of these Miocene beds on the southern coast of 

 New Guinea is one of considerable importance. Their occurrence, 

 I believe, suggests the former land-connection of New Guinea with 

 the Australian continent, and this belief is further borne out by 

 the fact of the shallowness of the intervening sea, I am not aware 

 that any Miocene rocks have yet been identified as such on the 

 northern coast of the Cape York Peninsula ; but it is not impro- 

 bable that the ferruginous sandstone described by Mr. Macleay as 



