190 Miscellaneous. 



Notes on a Collection of Geological Specimens from the Coasts of 

 New Guinea, Cape York, and neighbouring Islands, collected by 

 William Macleay , Esq., F.L.S., President of the New-South-Wales 

 Linnean Society, Sydney. By C. S. Wilkinson, Government 

 Geologist. (Read before the Linnean Society, Sydney, 28th 

 February, 1876.) 



I have lately examined a small collection of geological specimens 

 brought from the coast of New Guinea by the President of this 

 Society, Mr. William Macleay, and which were collected by him when 

 on his recent tour of exploration in the Chevert. 



These specimens consist of : — 



1. Quartz porphyry (Palaeozoic) from Cape York; found under- 

 lying beds of Tertiary ferruginous sandstone, 



2. Vesicular basalt and brecciated volcanic tufa (Upper Tertiary) 

 from Darnley Island. 



3. Small concretions of limonite, with polished- looking surfaces, 

 dredged up off' the coast of New Guinea. 



4. Specimens of chalcedony and flint, from Hall's Sound. 



5. Oolite limestone (Tertiary), very friable, from Bramble Cay. 



6. Yellow calcareous (Tertiary) clay, from Katau River. 



7. Yellow and blue calcareous clays (Tertiary), from Yule Island 

 and Hall's Sound. 



It is with reference more particularly to the fossiliferous clays that 

 I would offer a few remarks. 



These clays, as indicated by the fossils contained in them, belong 

 to the Lower Miocene Tertiary period. 



So far as I am aware, this is the first notice of such fossils having 

 been discovered in New Guinea ; and this discovery of Mr. Macleay'a 

 is the more interesting inasmuch as the Miocene marine beds, which 

 occupy a considerable area in Victoria and South Australia, have 

 nowhere been found on the eastern coast of Australia north of the 

 Victorian border (Cape Howe). Referring to this fact, the Rev. W. 

 B. Clarke says that " throughout the whole of Eastern Australia, 

 including New South Wales and Queensland, no Tertiary marine 

 deposits have been discovered." 



The comparison of this Miocene fauna from a locality so near the 

 equator with that from higher latitudes will be important work for 

 a palaeontologist. 



Professor M'Coy has already gone far to prove, from the comparison 

 of certain Miocene fossils, that the fauna of the Older Tertiary period 

 in Australia was not so restricted in its geographical range as it now 

 is, but was then closely related generically, and even specifically, to 

 that of many parts of Europe and America ; and I think that perhaps 

 even the few fossils now before us may afford some additional evidence 

 in confirmation of the views of that eminent palaeontologist. 



The Miocene clay-beds of New Guinea, judging from the speci- 

 mens collected by Mr. Macleay, are exactly similar in lithological 

 character to the Lower Miocene beds near Geelong and on the Cape- 

 Otway coast in Victoria. 



