Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria. 137 



one week, whilst the preliminary work of sorting occupied 

 many months. Tlie making of each preparation involved a 

 considerable amount of labour. What was wanted was 

 more labourers, not more exploration. Mr. Gabriel had 

 done a lot of work in exploring other parts of the coast. 

 A little work had also been done on the north of the 

 Bay. The Field Naturalist and University Science Clubs 

 had made excursions and brought back many valuable 

 specimens. 



The President said it seemed as though the work were 

 going on outside the original scope of the survey. 



Mr. Way thought it was always contemplated that the 

 interior of Port Phillip should receive first attention, and 

 that the Survey should afterwards be extended round the 

 coast. 



Mr. Dennant said that when the shells in Victorian 

 waters were originally named, a number was obtained 

 merely as dead shells in the absence of living ones, and it 

 afterwards transpired that many of them did not belong to 

 Victorian waters at all, but had been brought from other 

 parts of the world as ballast, and a good many had to be 

 excised. He took it that the Biological Survey was obtain- 

 ing living specimens, and as far as the mollusca were 

 concerned, the value of tiie work must be very great. A 

 long list of the shells obtained in Portland Bay had been 

 published, but he had no doubt that a number of them were 

 exotics, owing to the nuaiber of ships from different parts of 

 the world laden with ballast anchoring in that locality. 

 This might be the case in Port Phillip. He would like to 

 see dredging operations in Portland Bay and on the Gipps- 

 land coast. It was very noticeable that shells found in 

 South Australian waters were not taken up in Victorian 

 waters, and it would be rather interesting to know at what 

 point they commenced to appear or disappear. A friend of 

 his, when dredging on one occasion, had been astonished by 

 getting a tremendous haul of shells, but he had afterwards 

 found that, at that very spot, the ballast of a vessel had 

 been thrown out. This was a source of error which needed 

 to be guarded against, and the only safe way was to get the 

 living shells. 



A paper on the " New Britain Currency, or Shell Money," 

 communicated by the Rev. R. H. Rickard, was read by 

 Professor Spencer, who said that this was the first paper 



