RELATIONSHIPS OF THE AUSTRALIAN CAINOZOIC SYSTEM. 
mineral and organic contents, bear a striking resemblance to the 
clay and associated calcareous nodules of the London and Hampshire 
Basins.” Since no detailed analysis or comparison of the fossil 
faunas were offered, this conclusion was only tentative. A further 
opinion was advanced by Selwyn in 1856, when, in his “ Report 
on the Geological Structure of the Colony of Victoria, the Basin of 
the Yarra, and part of the Northern, North-eastern, and Eastern 
Drainage of Western Port Bay,’* he relegated the Victorian 
Tertiaries to Eocene, Miocene, Pliocene, and Pleistocene. 
William Blandowski, in 1857 (in a Report written in 1854)+ 
referred to several genera of mollusca and polyzoa as occurring in 
the Mount Martha beds (= Balcombian), and expressed the opinion 
that they are co-eval with the uppermost strata of the London, 
Paris, and various Italian clay basins. 
The Mount Gambier Cainozoics (polyzoal limestone) were regarded 
by the Rev. J. E. Tenison Woods, in 1859,t as Eocene ; but, later, 
of the age of the Phocene Coralline Crag in England. The same 
author finally arrived at a mean in concluding|| that they were older 
than that series, and younger than the Muddy Creek beds; con- 
clusions which are upheld in the present paper, as far as relate to 
the lower bed of that series. 
Sir F. McCoy, in 1861,{| regarded the Balcombian beds of Mt. 
Eliza and Mt. Martha (Balcombe’s Bay) as of Upper Eocene age ; 
but this was subsequently altered** to Oligocene, in accordance with 
the change of nomenclature and subdivision of similar beds in 
Europe, to which McCoy referred in the following terms :—‘* These 
have the general facies, and even specific identity of so many species, 
so clearly marked that there cannot be the slightest doubt of the 
great thickness of those beds being Lower Miocene of the date and 
general character of the Faluns of Touraine, the Bordeaux and the 
Malta beds; while the base of the series blends imperceptibly with 
a series of beds having a slightly older facies, and rendering the 
adoption of the Oligocene formation of Beyrich as convenient for 
Victoria as for European geologists.” In this Essay McCoy draws 
the inference of a community of strata of Oligocene and Miocene 
ages exhibited in the Victorian, European, and North American 
deposits, by noting the occurrence of the teeth of Squalodonyy7 and 
typical Middle Tertiary sharks. With his extensive knowledge of 
Kuropean fossil faunas, and a keen eye for resemblances in the facies 
of widely separated areas, McCoy gave his conclusions, which were at 
* Votes and Proceedings, Legislative Council, 1855—56., vol. ii. 
+ “On an Excursion to Frankston, Baleombe’s Creek, Mount Martha, Port Phillip Heads, 
and Cape Schanck.” Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. Vict., vol. i., p. 24, et seq. 
~ Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., vol. xvi., p. 253 et seq. 
§ Geol. Obs. in S. Australia, 1862, pp. 85, 86. 
|| Q.J.G.S., 1865, vol. xxi., p. 393. 
§{ Exhibition Essays, 1861, p. 159. 
** Ditto (1866), 1867, p. 322, or sep. paper, p. 16. 
+t The Victorian species is now referred to a related genus, Parasqualodon. See T. S. Hall. 
Proc. Roy. Soc. Vict., vol. xxiii. (N.S.), pt. I1., 1911, p. 262. 
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