Fossil Fauna, Table Cape Beds, Tasmania. 77 



than raise the percentage of living forms, for it is a Aery notice- 

 able and important fact that in the collection at pi'esent under 

 examination, although it consists almost wholly of large species, 

 there ai'e upwards of twenty new forms included in less than 150 

 species. When the small shells are more thoroughly known, the 

 list of species ought to be very materially increased ; and judging 

 from the fauna of similar beds in Victoria, the recent species are 

 not likely to be largely increased, if at all. 



Mr. Johnston's section* of the Table Cape beds is as follows : — 

 Cap of recent basaltic tuft' and wacke, 80 feet ; calcareous sand- 

 stone and frequent bands, containing abundant remains of corals, 

 echinoderms, and brachiopods, 78 feet ; Crassatella bed, 80 feet, 

 which apparently indicates a thickness of 158 feet for the marine 

 beds ; yet subsequently! the same author states that " nowhere 

 along the Tasmanian coast does the marine group exceed 70 feet 

 in thickness." I fail to comprehend what this means. The 

 pi'esent collection of fossils came principally from the lower 

 deposits locally known as the Crassatella bed, and judging from 

 the fossils I regard this zone as the direct equivalent of the so- 

 called middle beds of the Spring Creek section in Victoria. The 

 coarseness of the material in which a number of the Table Cape 

 fossils is preserved, the worn character of many of the species, 

 and the abundance of fragments of shells, clearly indicate the 

 littoral character of the deposit, and as an attendant fact of some 

 importance we have certain faunal characteristics indicative of 

 the same feature. On the other hand the clayey portions at 

 least of this zone at Spring Creek do not appear to have been 

 quite so close to land, as evidenced by the liner sediments, and 

 the absence hitherto of any specially littoral fossil forms. The 

 comparatively slight differences existing between these two repre- 

 sentatives of what I regard as the same zone appear to me to be 

 adequately accounted for by the fact that the one set of deposits 

 was laid down very much closer to the then existing shore line 

 than the other. 



Another representative of this horizon in Victoria appears to 

 be the clay beds of Cape Otway, as evidenced by the fossils 



* Proc. Ro.v. Soc. Tas., 1S76, section opposite p. 90. 

 t Geology of Tasmania, pp. 244, 245. 



