applicable to the Theory of t fit: Earth. i5§ 



Tn the rapid view which I am going to take of my results 

 in this respect, I shall treat in succession of what relates to 

 fossil shells and zoophiles. One of the principal reasons 

 of this distinction, the importance of which I shiill soon 

 have occasion to prove, is the almost absolute exclusion o¥ 

 everv large kind of solid zoophites after the 34th degree of 

 so\ith latitude, beyond which I observed only the difficult 

 and orbicole tribes of the sponges^ the alcyons, flustres, and 

 some millepores. 



A. Petrified SheUs, 



It would be too tedious and useless to eater here into the 

 details of all my observations on this subject : it will be 

 sufficient for me to give an account only of the principal 

 results. 



At Van Diemen's Land, towards the bottom of the 

 North River, I observed, at the height of six or seven 

 hundred feet above the level of the sea, large masses of 

 petrified shells, all belonging to the lime genus of Lamarck, 

 and constituting a species to which I could find none living 

 analogous in the same places. 



On several points of the east coast of the island Maria 

 there are seen regular horizontal strata, consisting of a 

 kind of whitish shelly freestone resting on granitic rocks, 

 at the height of four or five hundred feet above the level of 

 the sea. 



At Kangaroo Island, those of St. Peter and St. Francis, 

 and that portion of the continent situated behind tliem, I 

 made similar observations : I found always some remains 

 of petrified shells, at a greater or less distance, in the in- 

 terior of the country, and at heights more or less consi- 

 derable. 



Vancouver and Mainzles had before observed some in 

 Port King George, and In that point also I n)yself collected 

 several specimens. 



During the interesting excursion which my friend M. 

 Eailly made into the interior of New Holland, ascending 

 Swan's River for about twenty leagues, he found every 

 where, as he told me, the ground covered with quartzy 

 sand mixed with the remains of shells. 



At the Bay of Seals this phienomenon occurs with inorc 

 decisive characters. The whole substance ol' the barren 

 isles of Dorre and that of Dirk-Hartog consist of freestone, 

 sometimes reddish and sometimes whitish, filled with 

 Bhelis of din'ercnt kinds. 



This composition becomes still more striking at Timor. 

 7 Oa 



