NOTE ON A LABYRINTHODONT FOSSIL FROM 

 COCKATOO ISLAND, PORT JACKSON. 



By Professor Stephens, M.A., F.G.S. 



The circumstances under which this very interesting fossil was 

 discovered and obtained are sufficiently curious to merit some notice. 

 And perhaps such notice may serve to give fresh encourage- 

 ment to those who had begun to despair of finding any satisfactoiy 

 evidence as to the epoch of our Hawkesbury formation, and may 

 prevent the careless destruction of such evidence as will from time 

 to time be unearthed in the ordinary processes of quarrying. 



It is to the quick eye of Mr. Maiden, the energetic Curator 

 of the Technological Museum, that we owe, in the first instance, 

 the very important discovery which has now been made. Mr. 

 Fagan, an engine-driver employed on the works of the new Dock 

 at Biloela, or Cockatoo Island, had heard from one of the labourers 

 that some " funny things" had just been dislodged by a blast in the 

 process of excavation. One of these " funny things," a very 

 large Planorbis, or some closely allied form, he obtained, and 

 handed to Mr. Maiden, who most unfortunately was, the very 

 next day, attacked by a severe and dangerous illness. On 

 his recovery, some weeks afterwards, he communicated with 

 Mr. C. S. Wilkinson, Government Geologist, showing him the 

 supposed Planorbis, and informing him of the occurrence of other 

 fossils in the same locality. Mr. Wilkinson at once despatched his 

 best •' fossil-hunter," Mr. C. Cullen, to the place, who found that 

 the greater portion of the find, a whole truck load, had been shot 

 down into the waters of the harbour, and covered up by great 

 quantities of less interesting material. He picked up, however, 

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