62 PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS—SECTION C. 
add, parenthetically, that the general facts relative to the 
affinities of the Australian geological faunas, as enunciated by 
European authorities, have made little advance towards revision 
since the time of the publication of Prof. De Koninck’s ‘Pal. 
Aust.” in 1877 ; indeed, so recently as 1896, the President of the 
Geological section of the British Association Adv. Science in his 
address has repeated out-of-date statements. . 
The popular notion that Australia is now in the Oolitic stage 
has foundation in the survival of a few, though distinctive, types ; 
but other areas besides Australia have representatives of old 
faunas—e.g., King Crabs, Lepidosiren, Protoperus, &c., and the 
molluscan fauna of Lake Tanganyika. However, this geological 
romance neglects important facts of the geological history of 
these old types during Cainozoic times. 
The adoption of the doctrine of Homotaxy, as regards Aus- 
tralia, has hampered the forms of expression of our ideas of 
classification, inasmuch as the majority of teachers and field- 
workers, while wishful to apply the methods of classification, 
which they had imported to Australia from Great Britain, have 
been confronted by the possibilities that their estimate of 
equivalency may be wrong. This notion of homotaxial corres- 
pondence has driven the Australian geologists to the establish- 
ment of a local terminology, which, though it may correctly 
represent our chronological sequence, yet it does not bring our 
series in an alignment with that of other Continental areas. I 
offer the following illustrative examples :— 
1. Messrs. Jack and Etheridge, “Geol. and Pal. of Queens- 
land,” admit as component parts of the Cretaceous System in 
Australia the “ Rolling Down Series” and the “ Desert Sand- 
stone,” or Lower and Upper Cretaceous respectively. On a 
liberal interpretation, no more is meant than the Cretaceous 
System of Australia is divisible into a lower and an upper set of 
beds. On the other hand, by implication the Rolling Down Series 
is synchronous with Neocomian, which is not in accord with 
its paleontological facies, which is that of the Upper Cretaceous 
of Europe. If thus we denominate the “ Rolling Down Series” 
as synchronous with Upper Cretaceous, where shall we find a 
place for the “ Desert Sandstone?’ This has been provided for 
by Tate and Watt, “Geol. Horn Exped.,” who classify it as 
Supra-Cretaceous, and in the belief that it offers paleontological 
features analogous with the Laramie Series of North America. 
2. Siluro-Devonian and Devono-Carboniferous are merely 
tentative terms, because of our limited knowledge of the fauna 
of each. 
3. Permo-Carboniferous.—This term is a compromise; for 
though the geological series in its fauna partakes of something 
ef both Carboniferous and Permian, yet it is neither the one nor 
