BY PROFESSOR STEPHENS. 531 



quite recent ; and it must be many a thousand years since whales 

 could have maintained themselves upon that ground. It is 

 hardly necessary to add that no marine beds of any kind have 

 been met with in sinking wells or the like through the alluvium, 

 which is probably fluviatile to the very bottom, and there rests on 

 an irregular surface of hill and dale, formed by the long and deeply 

 eroded Coal bearing rocks. These again, in all probability rest, 

 as has been shown, on a similarly eroded surface of Silurian or 

 even older Slates, and these, as the Hindoo Cosmogony has it, 

 upon the fundamental Tortoise. 



Dimensions of some Gigantic Land Tortoises. 

 By J. C. Cox, M.D., &c. 



We have in Sydney two large specimens of a Gigantic Land 

 Tortoise. One is the property of Alexander McDonald, Esq., of 

 Adelaide Cottage, Potts' Point, and is named " Rotumah," from 

 the fact of his having been presented to the owner by the Chief of 

 Rotumah. This specimen is a male. 



The second is owned by Dr. Manning at Gladesville, a female. 



Porter in 1813, was the first who published any record of these 

 huge Land Tortoises, which he found from 3 to 4001bs. in weight at 

 the Galapagos Islands. I am not at all sure as to what species these 

 two Tortoises belong, but they are supposed to come from Galapagos 

 Archipelago. Darwin saw two there which he says must have 

 weighed at least two hundred pounds each. 



There is a large specimen of this Tortoise at Ceylon, whose great 

 size was considered sufficient by the inhabitants to demand a 

 Royal Inspection — First, by the Duke of Edinburgh while on a 

 cruise in H M.S. Galatea, and subsequently by H. R. H. the 

 Prince of Wales, when he landed at Ceylon on his way to India. 

 This tortoise weighed 2241bs., but some notion of the enormous 

 Tortoise in the possession of Mr. McDonald may be found when I 

 mention that its weight is no less than 6 4 2 lbs. 



Subjoined is a record of the measurements of Mr. McDonald's 

 Tortoise and those of the Ceylon and Gladesville specimens. The 

 specimen at Gladesville far exceeds that of the Ceylon specimen, but 



All 



