PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION C. 207 



ON THE PALAEONTOLOGY OF THE SILURIAN OF VICTORIA. 



By Frederick Chapman, A.L.S., F.R.M.S., Palceontologist to the 

 National Museum, Melbourne. 



Introduction. 



The Victorian Silurian strata contain a rich assemblage of fossils, 

 which, when thoroughly worked out, will safely hold their own in 

 variety and interest ^vith those of the better-known European, North 

 American, and other faunas. Up to the present, no detailed lists or 

 compendia of the Victorian Silurian faunas have been published, 

 ■excepting those found in Mr. R. Etheridge's Catalogue of Australian 

 Fossils,* the lists of selected type fossiLs supplied by Professor J. W. 

 Gregoryt in his paper on the Heathcotian, and the list of South Yarra 

 fossils recently published by the writer.f The score or so of fossils 

 mentioned by Gregory may be easily augmented to several hundreds 

 when the material at present in the hands of palaeontologists has been 

 fully dealt with. It has been presumed, therefore, that a connected 

 list of the Silurian fossils of this State, together with some essential 

 stratigraphical notes, and a census of recorded and unrecorded species, 

 with authors' references, may not be without value; and may thereby 

 save future workers some trouble in searching through not always 

 easily-accessible literature. 



Divisions of the Silurian. 



The Silurian system in Victoria has been divided by Prof. Gregory, § 

 quoting his own words, " into two divisions — a lower, or Melbournian, 

 and an upper, or Yeringiau. The Silurian system occurs partly in a 

 series of gentle folds and partly in belts along a series of meridional 

 fracture lines, along which the beds are intensely contorted. Going 

 eastward from the western edge of the series, the main folds in the 

 Silurian are — (1) the contorted zone of the Melbournian beds ; (2) the 

 Warrandyte anticline ; (3) the Lilydale synclinal ; (4) the anticline of 

 the Upper Yarra, i)i the centre of which, near Matlock, Upper Ordo- 

 vician rocks are exposed ; (5) the geosynclinal of Walhalla." 



(a) Melbournian. — The older of Gregory's divisions, the Melbour- 

 nian, consists of mudstones and sandstones, often very fossiliferous. 

 Owing to the decalcified nature of the rocks, the fossils from this divi- 

 sion are, generally spealdng, in the form of moulds anji^casts. These, 



* Etheridge ('78), pp. 3-26. 

 + Gregory {'03), p. 172. 

 J Chapman ('10), pp. 65-7(». 

 I Gregory ('03), p. 173. 



