140 Chapman, Victorian Fossiliferous Limestones. [v^'i'^^'xxx' 



Sorrento and Warrnambool for the buildings. The older dunes 

 of Victoria contain fossil remains of extinct marsupials, as 

 Palorchestes, thus pointing to the fairly ancient character of 

 some dune-rocks. Thin shces of dune-rock under the micro- 

 scope show the component organisms to consist of fragments 

 of the shells of molluscs, plates and spines of sea-urchins, joints 

 of star-fishes, and foraminifera. These dune-rocks, whether 

 found on the coasts of England, Africa, India, or elsewhere, 

 are all much of the same nature and general organic origin. 

 In warm countries the curious little oolitic grains, themselves 

 of plant origin, form a large part of the dune-sand rock, as in 

 India and on the shores of the Red Sea. 



In Pleistocene times in Victoria many of the lakes, both 

 inland and coastal, became the home of myriads of shells and 

 Crustacea (ostracoda), and, according to whether these mollusca 

 and ostracoda are of fresh-water or brackish habits, so we get 

 a clue as to the origin of the deposit. Besides shells like 

 Btilinus and Coxiella, there are often found quantities of the 

 carapaces of the ostracoda of the family Cypridce, which swarmed 

 in the lacustrine waters. 



Referring to Kalimnan or Lower Pliocene times, the Vic- 

 torian occurrences of limestone are unimportant, and consist 

 largely of shell-marls rather than limestones, many of which 

 are crowded with molluscan shells, which may indicate shallow 

 conditions by the presence of Natica and Glycimeris, or deeper 

 conditions by Pleurotoma. 



The chief Cainozoic limestones of Victoria may be referred 

 to the Janjukian series, of Miocene age elsewhere. Such rocks 

 are seen in the Waurn Ponds stone and the Batesford Hme- 

 stone, the harder portions of which are used as a building 

 stone (Moorabool stone), as, for example, in the new City Police 

 Court. 



The interesting features of some of the geography of this 

 old Miocene period was touched upon, and by following Hang's 

 map of the geosynclines or earth troughs of that age it was 

 seen that a certain group of foraminifera known as Lepido- 

 cyclina marked out, in its occurrence in various localities, the 

 shore of the old Mediterranean or Tethyan Sea. The genus 

 of foraminifera mentioned is found at Batesford and other 

 places in Victoria, where we have represented the most southerly 

 extension of this Miocene sea, excepting perhaps that indicated 

 in New Zealand. Other examples of this great limestone-making 

 epoch were illustrated, as the echinoids and fish-remains, 

 groups which are as well represented amoagst Victorian fossils as 

 those from any other part of the world. 



The older Cainozoic series of Balcombe's Bay was commented 

 upon, and the calcareous concretions or cement-stones, showing 



