213 



NOTE ON THE TERTIARY FOSSILS FROM HALL 

 SOUND, NEW GUINEA. 



By Professor Ralph Tate. 



The collection of Tertiary fossils from Hall Sound, New Guinea, 

 which was reported ou by the late Rev. Tenison-Woods,*' has been 

 entrusted to my care by the Trustees of the Macleay Museum, 

 through tlie intervention of Professor David, with the view to a 

 critical comparison of the mollusca with those of the Older 

 Tertiary of Southern Australia, to certain species of Valuta from 

 which some approximate identifications had been essayed by the 

 late Mr. Wilkiiison.| My examination of the fossils dispels the 

 notion of such a correlation ; indeed, the genus Valuta is unrepre- 

 sented in the collection, and it is not at all improbable that the 

 cast of a species of Stromhus may have beeu mistaken for that of 

 Valuta macroptera. Nevertheless, Tenison- Woods expressed the 

 opinion that the "deposits were a very recent Tertiary formation, 

 much newer than any of the Murray River or Western Victorian 

 beds," <fec. I am not only able to confirm this opinion, but press 

 for a more recent date than that imjjlied by Tenison- Woods. 



The collection embraces a very limited number of fossils with 

 their tests preserved, the very large majority being casts or 

 moulds in a very friable matrix. Of the species in the former 

 category, the following have had names ai)plied to them by the 

 author above-quoted, viz. — Pecten NovcB-GuinecH, Perotiella decago- 

 naiis and Temnecldnus Macleayi. 



* P.L.S.N.S.W. Vol. ii. pp. 125 et 267 (1878) ; see also Jack and Ethe- 

 ridge, Geol. Queensland, pp. 690-698. 



+ Jack and Etheridge, op. cit. 



