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HISTORY OF AUSTRALIAN TERTIARY GEOLOGY. 



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

 Cork. Mem. Roy. Soc. Tas.^ and N. S. Wales. 



[Read llth July, 1876.] 



The first person to call attention to the tertiary formations of Aus- 

 tralia was Capt. Flinders, who, in his survey of the south coast in 

 1802, noticed the fossiliferous cliffs of the Australian Bight. He 

 imagined them to have been derived from some vast coral reef. 

 Tertiary geology as such was not then known. In 1829 Capt. Sturt 

 traced down the Murray River, and in doing so came to a portion 

 bounded on each side by high limestone cliffs, which were one 

 mass of fossils, many of which converted into selenite. He 

 identified some of those collected with European forms, and though 

 in this he was mistaken, yet he was correct in designating the 

 formation as tertiary. The subject then remained in abeyance, 

 except from some cave remains sent home by Sir Thomas Mitchell, 

 until 1850, when, encouraged by Sir Charles Lyell, who was in a 

 great measure my instructor in geology, I prepared an account of 

 the tertiary formation in South Australia, for the Geological Society, 

 which was published by them. This was accompanied by a valuable 

 notice of the Polyzoa and Foraminifera, by Professors Busk and 

 Rupert Jones respectively. These investigations were followed by 

 my work on the Geology of South Australia, in 1862, subsequent 

 to which the regular rej^orts of the Victorian Geological Survey have 

 thrown a flood of light upon the whole subject. Professor McCoy 

 has from time to time issued notices of some of the most interesting 

 fossils and their affinities, while two parts of the "Decades" of 

 the Museum have been dedicated to Paleontology, principally 

 tertiary. Within the last ten years Professor Duncan, the illustrious 

 President of the Geological Society, has steadily devoted himself to 

 the elucidation of the Austrahan Tertiary Corals ; while Professor 

 Laube, in Vienna, has given equal attention to our fossil Echinoder- 

 mata. The eminent paheontologist, Thomas-Davidson, has taken 

 our Brachiopoda in hand, — a work begun already by Robert 

 Etheridge, jun., who has also, with Professor Duncan, added 

 something to our knowledge of the Echinodermata. 



It will be seen from this brief sketch that though the tertiary 

 formations of Australia have occupied many minds, yet our pro- 

 gress, so far, has been somewhat slow. This is the more remarkable, 

 as. it has long been believed among scientific men that the develop- 

 ment of Australian geology must reveal facts of the i^tmost im- 

 portance to science generally. It has been remarked by some 

 geologists that the present state of Australia is very similar to what 

 Europe was immediately after the secondary or Mesozoic period. 

 The position of Australia renders it less liable to an admixture 

 of its species with those of other continents, and therefore its 

 natural history is to a certain extent peculiar to itself. In the Flora 

 the correspondence to the Mesozoic period is well marked. There 



