362 ON SOME POST TERTIARY FOSSILS FROM NEW CALEDONIA, 



Brazier were smaller than those figured by Mons. Glassies, (Faune 

 Conchyl. de la Nbuvelle Caledon. 2. part, p. 66, 113 pi. 2, fig. 15). 

 The original description was in the Jour, de Conchy., 1869, p. 71, 

 and the habitat given Baie du Sud. 



When Mons. Glassies first saw these shells with the same 

 constant character, that is to say their dead appearance, he justly 

 concluded that the species or variety must be extinct. In answer 

 to enquiries addressed to the Eev. Father Lambert, the following 

 facts were furnished: To the south-east of the Isle of Pines 

 there is an islet called by the natives Koutoumo. The first 

 specimens oiBulimus senilis were collected there in large quantities. 

 The islet is of a marine formation. Its base is a white sonorous 

 (flinty ?) calcareous stone, over this lies a sandy vegetable loam 

 supporting a vigorous growth of pines, with which the whole 

 island is covered as well as with some other large trees. It is in 

 this loam, between the surface and the calcareous rock, that the 

 shells of Bulimus senilis, are found. They are also found in holes 

 which go to the level of the sandy loam. They are never found 

 alive, but exist in the Isle of Pines, the islet " aux Pigeons," 

 champs de Yao, and probably many of the low islands to the 

 south. Where the sea has washed the soil in caverns and similar 

 places they are seen on the surface, but do not appear on the 

 vegetable soil, unless where by the falling of a tree they are 

 found entangled in the roots. They are very often completely 

 encrusted with coral or a calcareous matrix. Though coral is 

 abundant among them, yet marine shells are not often found, 

 and very few other land-shells. The Marist missionaries do not 

 say if the coral is in broken rolled masses or in fragments little 

 altered since their growth. In any case it would seem by this 

 strange mixture of land and marine remains, as if the island has 

 been covered for a very short time by the sea. It seems in fact 

 more like the result of a tidal wave than any prolonged sub- 

 mergance. That there has been some upheaval within recent 

 times is very evident from the coral rock here referred to, which 



