13 



ON SOME TERTIARY FOSSILS FROM TABLE CAPE. 

 By the Rev. J. E. Tenison Woods, F.L.S., F.G.S., &c. 



[Read 9th March, 1873.] 



Mv attention has been called to some fossils in the Museum 

 of the Society, which are alleged to have been collected close 

 to the sea-side at Table Cape. They were presented to the 

 Society by Dr. Milligan, and consist of remains taken, as far 

 ns I can judge, from three ditferent deposits. In perusing 

 the transactions of your Society, I do not find that an attempt 

 has yet been made to determine the relations of these beds 

 to similar deposits in Australia. Neither can I learn that a 

 classification of the imbedded remains has been attempted. 

 The following observations on. the subject may, therefore, be 

 of some little value. 



Most of the members of the Society are probably aware 

 that extensive tertiary deposits ai-e found in Australia. They 

 are, as far as known, restricted to the southern portions of the 

 continent. From Carpentaria I have seen fossils from quar- 

 ternary raised beaches, and also similar fossils from Perth 

 in Western Australia. Generally the eastern, northern, 

 and south-easteru portions of the continent are occupied by 

 Palajozoic rocks, and this seems to be the case in Western 

 Australia. The series of tertiary rocks in Southern Au'stralia 

 is very complete. Commencing in the west side of the Great 

 Australian Bight, they are but little interrupted until tho 

 high land of Cape Otway is reached. The only interruptions 

 are, granite outcrops about Fowler's Bay, Port Lincoln, &c., 

 and the axis of the Flinder's range, which terminates at Capo 

 Jervis. Upon the flanks of all these, up to a certain height, 

 the tertiary rocks rest. 



In some places, such as the Australian Bight, the beds are 

 nearly 400 feet in thickness, which give almost at one glance 

 a conspectus of the whole of our tertiary formations. Between 

 AVaruuambool and Cape Otway there are equally perfect 

 series, but not superimposed. It will very much elucidate 

 what I have to say in this paper if I give an abstract of Mr. 

 Wilkinson's report on geology of the Cape Otway district. 

 (See Reports of Geological Survey of Victoria.) 



" The carbonaceous range which rises near Loutit Buy 

 reaches 2,000 feet, 12 miles north of Apollo Bay, and which 

 again falls to Moonlight Head, seems to have been an elevated 

 portion of the sea bottom during the deposition of the miocene 

 strata. From position and the horizontal manner in which 

 the upper beds of the series repose on the flanks of the range, 

 I am inclined to believe tln-y never wholly covered it. This 

 formation occurs, at intervals, round the dividing range to 



