19 



the expedition,' deposited in the Britisli Museum. He says, 

 "The geological specimens collected during this journey have 

 been deposited in the British Museum, etc." ' The organic 

 portion of this collection consisting of Molluscan remains in 

 a ferruginous sandstone, silicilied woods, and what I take to 

 be the identical Belemnite referred to by the Eev. W. B. 

 Clarke. This collection is now under my charge in the above 

 Institution, and it affords me much pleasure in being able to 

 be the means of again bringing to light this long-forgotten 

 treasure. Forgotten, however, the specimens have not been 

 by ore 2:)erson, my respected colleague Mr. Thomas Davies, 

 F.G.S., in whose care the collection remained from the year 

 1848 to the time it was transferred to me, and who drew my 

 special attention to it. 



Mitchell's second journey was made, if I mistake not, in 

 1846, so that in the event of the specimen in c[uestion being 

 that collected by him, the British Museum will have the 

 satisfaction of possessing in its collection the first secondary 

 fossil found in Australia. 



Before describing the Belemnite it will perhaj^s be best to 

 take a glance at certain events in the early history of 

 Australian Geology, more particularly those referring to the 

 discovery of secondary fossils. 



In 1860 Mr. A. R. C. Selwyn reported the discovery of two 

 specimens "imbedded in our Pliocene water-worn gravel near 

 Melbourne. . . . Considered by McCoy to belong to 

 decidedly chalk species. One is a very perfect Echinid, the 

 other a fragment of a coral ;" ' this was of course written in 

 1859. The Echinoderm, which McCoy identified as Conulus 

 alhogalerus, the latter appeared to consider spurious, so far as 

 their Australian identity was concerned.' 



The Eev. W. B. Clarke informs us in his paper " On 

 Marine Fossiliferous Secondary Formations in Australia,'" that 

 during his own Explorations in 1851-53, he had received a 

 portion of an Ammonite from the Clarence Eiver district in 

 New South Wales. This is probably the earliest discovery of 

 secondary fossils in Australia, setting aside Sir T. L. Mitchell's 

 Belemnite, although Mr. F. T. Gregory appears to have been 

 the first to actually publish an account of such a discovery, 

 for we find mentioned in an appendix to his paper, " On the 



1. Journal of an Exped. into the Int. of Tropical Australia, etc., by 

 Lt.-Col. Sir T. L. Mitchell, Loudon. 2 vols. 8vo. 1848. 2. Vol. L, 

 p. vii. 3. Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc. 1860. xvi., p. 148. 4. Trans. R. Soc. 

 Vict, vi., 50. 



5. Quart, Jour. Geol. Soc, 1867, xxiii., p. 7. 



