754 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 
Although the “aboriginal feast upon dugong” at Shea’s Creek 
may not be placed beyond the limit of Post-Tertiary time, and 
perhaps not even into Pleistocene time, the period of man’s pre- 
sence in Australia must have been very long. 
The other evidence, if we could rely upon it, would, as to the 
tooth from the Wellington Caves and the incised bone from the 
Great Buninyong Estate Company’s Mine, still further extend 
the human period, since man would then be seen to have been 
the contemporary of the extinct gigantic kangaroos at the time 
of the Newer Volcanic Era of Victori ia. 
Incidentally, as regards the period of man’s occupancy of 
Australia, there is the question of his having been the contem- 
porary of diprotodon and other giant extinct marsupials; and 
also another minor question: Mr. Robert L. Jack,* in repeating 
the question put by Mr. Etheridge, ‘“ Has man a geological history 
in Australia?” concludes with the further inquiry whether the 
dingo was introduced by him ; and decides, although admitting 
that the dingo is an “alien,” that the agency of man is not the 
only possible means of effecting his introduction to the island. 
He points out that the dingo may have simply walked overland ; 
and to this Mr. Etheridge adds in a foot-note that there is not a 
fragment of evidence to show that the arrival of man was coeval 
with the dingo. 
If my conclusions are correct as to there having been a land- 
bridge to Tasmania in the Newer Volcanic Era, by which we may 
suppose the Tasmanians to have crossed from the main land, the 
dingo could not have at that time been in what is now Victoria, 
or he would have “ walked overland,” even if he did not accom- 
pany the Tasmanians. The inference, therefore, is that he did 
not reach the southern coast until after the formation of Bass’s 
Strait, although he may have entered Australia by way of an 
upraised Torres Strait. 
A somewhat similar argument applies to diprotodon and his 
gigantic fellows. The formation in which diprotodon remains 
have been found in Victoria have usually been referred to as 
Pleiocene ; but there must be great doubt, since, although occurring 
in tracts of country covered with newer volcanic basalt in the 
western district and near Gisborne, the deposits in which the 
remains have been found seem to have been superficial alluvium 
or dried-up swamps. t+ 
Sir Frederick M‘Coy has informed me in conversation that, in 
his opinion, the formations containing diprotodon remains in 
Victoria have usually been placed too far back into the Pleiocene. 
Mr. Robert Jack * says that in Queensland there is no evidence 
that the extinct mammalia went back to the Tertiary epoch. The 
* XxXxI, p. 608. ft As, for instance, at Timboon, in Western Victoria. 
