REPORTS OF RESEARCH COMMITTEES. 345 



Au'stralia would improve vastly in climate. He argues that this 

 ie what happened in Pleistocene times, with the result that heavy 

 rains connected with Antarctic disturbances pushed far north of 

 the present limits. Dr. Taylor gives as evidence the widespread 

 occuiT'ence of Diprctodon remains in present desert parts of Aus- 

 tralia, e.g.. Lake Callabonna, Lake Darlot, Lake Eyre, also the 

 vast alluvials cf the Riverina, inaicating a period when numerous 

 large rivers emptied copious water supplies into the Tertiary Sea 

 of the Murray Basin. In his conclusions, Dr. Taylor says: — 

 " Hence the climatic belts are mo'ving poleward from the Equator. 

 The desert region is encroaching on the southern coasts of the 

 Continent. Tlie northern littoral is getting wetter." Although 

 the conclusion is no doubt correct, one may differ from Dr. Taylor 

 as to the causes, or probable causes, of the alteration between the 

 "zonal climate" and the climate of the "uniform" type, and 

 also the contempcraniety of mountain building periods and ice- 

 bergs. 



The conclusions stated above are supported by R. H. Cambage 

 iTi his Presidential Address to the Royal Society of New South 

 Wales in May, 1913. He shows that fossil leaves identified as 

 Eucalypts have been reported from the Miocene deposits of soiuth- 

 eastern Australia, and that they have a primitive transverse type 

 of leaf venation associated with warm climate forms. The occur- 

 rence of fossil leaves in Tasmania indicates that Eucalpyts with 

 this type of venation flourished in lat. 42 deg. S. in Eocene and 

 Miocene times, or about 4 deg., beyond the range of living 

 examples of this type. This occurrence had been predicted as 

 possible by Mr. H. Deane in a Presidential Address to the Lin- 

 naean Society of New South Wales, who based his opinion on a 

 consideration of the faunal evidence for warm Eocene and Miocene 

 climates in south-eastern Australia. 



Mr. Cambage also suggests that the leaves with extreme or 

 parallel venation, a cold or moist climate form, flourished in the 

 south as far back at the Miocene at least, and, as a result partly 

 of the Kosciusko' uplift and partly of a refrigeration of the 

 climate, theiy were enabled to travel north along the main divide 

 and are now localized on the higher elevations. He considered, 

 too, that the coastal oir " brush " type of vegetation within fairly 

 recent times extended further inland, indicating moisture condi- 

 tions there, but he showed that it might very well result from a ' 

 physiographic change, the lower elevation of the main divide, and 

 he does not, therefore, postulate a climatic change of wide inci- 

 dence to account for this former extension. 



The extension of the " brush " vegetation inland during Tertiary 

 times is also emphasized by G. A. Sussmilch in his Geology of New 

 Sciith Wales. He notes that leaves of sub-tro'pical plants are 



