79 



FIJRTHEE NOTES ON THE TEETIARY MARINE 

 BEDS OF TABLE CAPE. 



By R. M. Johnston. 



[Read llth July, 1876.] 



In a former paper upon the above subject, I confined my 

 observations principally to the organisms themselves. Since 

 that time I have visited Table Cape, and, assisted by Mr. 

 T. R. Atkinson of this town, I have not only added to my col- 

 lection a large number of new s])ecies, but have by careful 

 investigation become possessed of important particulars which 

 may be of some value in determining the relative po.sition of 

 this interesting deposit. 



On approaching Wynyard from the sea, the eye is at first 

 arrested by a bold basaltic headland, rising from the water at 

 an angle of 45 degrees, to a height of about 500 feet. The 

 bold outline and the characteristic level summit at once sug- 

 gests the idea that the striking object before you must be the 

 well-known Table Cape. On a nearer approach, two smaller 

 rounded bluff's come into view, and are rendered conspicuous 

 by the contrast which their white precipitous clifEs present, as 

 compared with the wooded and sombre slopes of Table Cape 

 proper. The two smaller bluffs are isolated from each other 

 and from Table Cape by narrow valleys formed by erosion, 

 while the larger valley or basin by which the river finds its 

 course to the sea separates them from the little township of 

 Wynyard. Notwithstanding the gaps between the bluffs, 

 an ordinary obsei'ver can perceive at a glance that the strati- 

 fied beds of the smaller ones were at one time continuous, 

 and that the protecting cap of basalt at the same time spread in 

 one continuous sheet over all the adjacent ridges. On closer 

 examination it becomes evident that we have in these two 

 solitary bluffs a small fragment of that raised sea bottom 

 which, most probably, at a recent period connected Tasmania 

 with the continent of Australia. At any rate it is most con- 

 clusive that we have in these stratified beds myriads of 

 organisms which were during the tertiary period inhabitants 

 of that vast shallow sea which then covered the greater part 

 of Australia and Tasmania and separated the remaining 

 portions into island groups.* 



The bluff nearest to the township of "Wynyard is about 160 

 feet high. The general strike is north and south, and the dip 

 inclines about 5 degrees in a north-westerly direction ; and at 

 this angle the beds disappear at sea level under the great 

 basaltic promontory of Table Cape. As the series of beds 



" See the Rev. J. E. Tenison-Wooda' paper. 



