PREFACE. 
hitherto only found in the Miocene Tertiary formations of Malta 
and of Bordeaux ; and as this mammalian genus is unknown in 
beds of more recent date than Miocene the new species now made 
known from the Victorian Tertiary sands near Cape Otway is an 
interesting evidence in favor of my suggestion from other fossils 
of the Miocene age of those beds. On the same plate are illustra- 
tions of the astonishing gigantic extinct fossil Shark of the Eocene 
Tertiary London clay form, the Carcharodon megalodon, from the 
Miocene Tertiary beds near Geelong. As the species is found, in 
Europe, also in the clearly Miocene Tertiary beds of Malta and 
the French Miocene Faluns of Dax, the evidence is in favor of my 
suggestion that these beds were Miocene. The same conclusion is 
borne out by the third fossil represented on this plate, the Car- 
charodon angustidens (Ag.), from the same beds near Geelong, 
which is identical with examples from the Miocene Tertiary beds 
of Biinde, in Westphalia. 
Then follow two plates illustrative of the curious, netted-veined, 
fossil Ferns from the Bacchus Marsh sandstones, the Gangamop- 
teris, also found, though rarely, with the Glossopteris in the Mesozoic 
coal beds of New South Wales. 
The fourth plate illustrates the characteristic Mesozoic coal 
Fern-genus Teniopteris, from the coal strata near Cape Patterson ; 
also a fine specimen of another characteristic Mesozoic coal Fern, 
the Pecopteris Australis, from the coal borings at Bellerine, near 
Queenscliff, identical with examples from the Tasmanian Mesozoic 
coal beds, and I think, on careful comparison of specimens, not 
separable by any definite characters from a species in the Oolitic 
coal shales of Yorkshire to which the late Mr. Bean gave the MSS. 
name Neuropteris Scarburgensis; strengthening the evidence of the 
Mesozoic age of the known Australian coal workings. 
The next four plates illustrate species of Cyprea so remote in 
character from any living, Pliocene, or Miocene forms as to coun- 
[4] 
, 
a 
