Art. XIV. — A Contribution to our Knowledge of the 

 Tertiaries in the Neighbourhood of Melbourne. 



By T. S. Hall, M.A., 



Demonstrator and Assistant Lecturer in Biology in the University 

 of Melbourne, 



G. B. Pritchard, 



Lecturer in Geology in the Working Men's College, Melbourne. 



(Plate VIII.) 



(Bead 10th September, 1896). 



Numerous scattered references have been made to the Melbourne 

 Tertiaries in our Geological Literature, but hitherto no attempt 

 has been made to describe them in any detail in the light of the 

 more recent paheontological work that has been published. The 

 lithological character of the sedimentary rocks of the period, 

 consisting as they do, for the most part, of ferruginous sands and 

 gravels, is not suited to the good preservation of fossils which are 

 represented as a rule by casts, and to a lesser extent by usually 

 very friable remains of the fossils themselves. As we have been 

 collecting material and studying the beds in all parts of the area 

 for some years, we feel that we are now in a position to make 

 some substantial additions to the knowledge of the series and to 

 clear away some misconceptions which prevail in reference to 

 their age. 



Historical. 



We mention in chronological order the more important 

 references to the deposits and the titles of a few additional 

 papers will be found in the Literature at the end of the present 

 article. 



In 1855 Mr. A. R. C. Selwyn, (1) under the head of Tertiary, 

 described the lithological character of the beds, indicating four 

 divisions. He says that the blue clays with limestone bands 

 appear to be the lowest portion of the tertiary series exposed in 



