REPORTS OF RESEARCH COMMITTEES. 343 



as viewed from the palaecntological side. The chief ideas put 

 forward in that paper are: — (1) The sub-tropical aspect of the 

 Miocene marine fauna, with its great variety of life forms, due 

 to congenial conditions, such as plentiful food supply and warm 

 temperate seas ; and also the varying pihases of ooast-line condi- 

 tions consequent upon the negative and positive oscillations of 

 the land during a period of great diastrophic movement. (2) The 

 march from thence to later times of certain genera and species of 

 the Miocene towards lower latitudes, occasioned by the lowering 

 of temperature of the ocean littoral, as in the case of the fora- 

 minifer OrhitoUtes and certain Pectens, as well as Harpa, Pyrula, 

 and (' KcniUa'a. (3) The cooling down of the climate of Soaith- 

 eastern Australia in Pliocene times, as evidenced by the abundance 

 of Xatica and Tellina in the chief marine sediments. (4) The in- 

 creased rainfall in the Pliocene and Early Pleistocene, which ap- 

 pears to be shown by the tremendous accumulations of estuarine 

 and so-called "drift" deposits of ironstone and buck-shot gravel. 



The above notes do' not embrace any reference to the earlier 

 Tertiary stage of the E'alcombian or Oligocene for the " Murray 

 Gulf/' of which area the report treats and which was in Oligocene 

 times on the edge of the continental hicrhland and formed part of 

 the catchment area when the Balcombe Bay beds and the Altona 

 Bay and Newport beds O'f the deep boTes, the Sorrento deposits, 

 and the older beds of Muddy Creek were laid down. Summariz- 

 ing the evidence of the Cainoizoic System, we may briefly state 

 that in the Balcombe stage of Oliggcenei age we have a series rang- 

 ing from marine deep-water to littoral sediments, and with inter- 

 calated beds of lignite, such as are largely developed in the Altona 

 and Newport Series. 



The marine fauna of the Balcombian as a whole seems to indi- 

 cate a warm temperate climate, but not very different from the 

 present, with the exception that intense sedimentation and the 

 beds of lignite point to a probably greater rainfall than at present, 

 with an accompanying growth of dense forests of timber of the 

 cupressinoxylon type, and probably referable to Callitris or allied 

 genra. 



The Janjul-ian Series, of Miocene nr/e, was laid down under a 

 climate that was distinctly warm temperate to tropical. The 

 change from Balcombian to Janjukian co'uld not have been very 

 sudden, either in the nature of the sedimentation or diffeirences of 

 temperature, for many instances can be adduced to show the same 

 species persistinsr from the Balcombian to the Janjukian and 

 even to the Kalimnan beds, as Gli/eimeris maccoyi, Aturia auK- 

 tralis, and Cuccullcea corioensis (surviving into Werrikooian or 

 Upyer Pliocene). The foraminifera Lepidori/cUjia and Miogypdna 

 indicate warm seas, and it is also noteworthy that Orhiolifes com- 

 planatus persists into the early Pleistocene. The early part of 



