17 



the AraucarliT, so common in the secondary rocks, are represented ; 

 and these are only found in the Pucitic Islands and Australia. 

 There are the -Lafn/cr imA Arthro-amm found only at the Cape of 

 Good Hope and Australia, being closely allied to species found in 

 secondary deposits. 



With regard to the Mammalia, no indigenous animals have been 

 found distinct from the Marsupialia except rodents, and one or 

 two species about whose introduction doubts have been entci'tained. 

 The rodents belong to an order which has many affinities with 

 marsupials, and in one genus, Phascolomys, the characters are in- 

 terchanged. 



The following passage from Mantell's ''Wonders of Geology" 

 will show that the views of geologists on this subject were. Speaking 

 of the Wealden strata, he says : — " Nor can we resist the conviction 

 that not only did the same terrestrial area, however modified it must 

 have been during the long succession of ages, supply the debris of 

 an almost unchanged system of animal and vegetable life to the 

 Jurassic seas at first, and subsequently to the Cretaceous ocean ; 

 but that, also, the fauna and flora of this ancient land of the 

 secondary ei)och luul mamj imported features ifliicJi now characterise 

 AitstralUt. The Stonesfield marsupials and the Purbeck Plagiaulax 

 are allied to genera now restricted to Australia and Tasmania, and 

 it is a most interesting fact, as Professor Phillips was first to 

 remark, that the organic remains with which these relics are 

 associated also correspond with existing forms of the Australian 

 Continent and neighbouring seas ; for it is in those distant latitudes 

 that the waters are inhabited by Cestrarions, Trigonia' and Terihra- 

 tulee, and that the dry land is clothed with Araucarin , tree ferns, 

 and cycadeous plants." 



These facts, coupled Avith the circumstance that no true 

 secondary rocks had been found in Australia, lent great force to 

 the opinion that we had in Australia a continent which, having 

 been dry land during the Mesozoic epoch and only a small 

 portion of it since submerged, had preserved the fauna and flora 

 of that time. But later investigations have shown that we 

 possess on the continent nearly every leading representative of 

 the secondary strata of Europe. In Western Australia, and in 

 Southern Queensland, the lower and middle Mesozoic formations 

 are largely represented ; while in N.E. Australia and all around 

 Carpentaria we have immense areas exclusively occupied with 

 deposits which very closely represent the upper and lower 

 Cretaceous with the Greensand of Europe. 



The more advanced state of our knowledge jilaces us now in a posi- 

 tion to give a solution to many important questions which naturally 

 arise. The first is whether the secondary forms show any remark- 

 able divergence from the typical forms of that period. To this we 

 may answer in the negative. In accordance with the general rule 

 in geology that the hnver we descend in tinie the wider the range of 

 species and the closer the resemblances, we find a strong resem- 

 blance, and, perhaps, in some cases, an identity which enables us 

 to say not only that the fossils are secondary, but, also, to what 

 particular subdivision of the secondary rocks they belong. As a 

 further illustration of the same rule, we find in our Paleozoic 



