and Palaeontology of Victoria. 191 



measures as much as the four molars of the fossil species, the 

 premolar of which thus stands entirely in front of the corre- 

 sponding tooth in the three living ones of the same size. This 

 wombat enables me thus to connect the irold-drifts in asre with 

 the more superficial red clays, in which the bones of the lake- 

 timboon &c. are found. And here we find, with the living dingo, 

 or native wild dog, inhabiting the neighbouring localities at 

 present, skulls and teeth of the Sarcophilus ursinus, or " Tas- 

 manian devil," which now is only know^u to exist in Tasmania, 

 and has never been known on the mainland; with these are 

 the bones and teeth of the gigantic extinct kangaroos (the Ma- 

 cropus Titan and the M. Atlas), as well as bones and teeth of the 

 gigantic extinct genera Nototherium and Diprotodon. The spe- 

 cies of the latter occurring in Victoria is quite distinct from 

 those of the more northern parts of the continent ; it is the 

 Diprotodon longiceps (M'Coy), readily distinguished by the more 

 slender, elongate proportion of the jaws. The ordinary gold- 

 drifts of Victoria, from the association (more or less direct) with 

 these fossils, may thus be taken to be of the newer Pliocene or 

 Mammaliferous Crag period, like those of Russia, determined by 

 Sir E,. Murchison. 



MIOCENE PERIOD. 



Under the Pleistocene and Pliocene deposits above alluded to 

 are a series of plant-beds in a few localities, with a totally dif- 

 ferent facies from the recent flora of the country, not one species 

 being identical ; nor are the characteristic genera represented, 

 but an entirely extinct series of species having generic and 

 general resemblance to the foliage of Asiatic plants of tropical 

 types of dicotyledonous plants, of which the Laurus is the most 

 conspicuous. Many of the forms are closely allied to those of 

 the Miocene plant-beds of the Rhine country. In apparently 

 the same position, in much more numerous localities, the marine 

 deposits of sands and clays full of shells, echinoderms, corals, with 

 occasional fish, and with still rarer marine mammalian remains, 

 occupy wide areas just under the Pliocene beds. These have 

 the general facies (and even specific identity) of so many species 

 so clearly marked, that there cannot be the slightest doubt of 

 the great thickness of those beds being lower Miocene of the 

 date and general character of the Faluns of Touraine, the Bor- 

 deaux and the Malta beds, while the base of the series blends 

 imperceptibly with a series of beds having a slightly older facies, 

 and rendering the adoption of the Oligocene formation of Bey- 

 rich as convenient for Victorian as for European geologists. 

 The only marine mammal of which I have seen portions which 

 could be identified in those beds is a new species of Squaludon 



