192 Miscellaneous. 



damp luxuriant forests which everywhere clothe the plains and 

 mountains of New Guinea." 



Baron von Mueller's remarks on some of the Papuan plants 

 collected by Mr. Macleay are also evidence in favour of the former 

 land-connexion of New Guinea with Australia ; so that our geolo- 

 gical evidence is supported by that of zoology and botany. 



From geological data it is believed that this continent has not 

 been submerged to any great extent since the Lower Pliocene 

 period ; and we know that it has risen a little since the Upper 

 Pliocene epoch, at least in Victoria ; for the lava-flows of that age, 

 now forming the Werribee Plains, were submarine Hows. And Mr. 

 Daintree, formerly Government Geologist of Queensland, shows in 

 his pamphlet ' On the Geology of Queensland ' that little iipheaval 

 of this portion of Australia has taken place since the volcanic out- 

 bursts of a late Tertiary epoch. Now, it is in the Upper Pliocene or 

 Pleistocene deposits that are found the remains of the gigantic mar- 

 supials Diprotodon, Macropus titan, Nototherium, and others ; and 

 as their allied representatives now occupy both Australia and New 

 Guinea, it is not improbable that those gigantic animals whose bones 

 are found in Northern Queensland also roamed in both those coun- 

 tries. And, further, as the luxuriant vegetation and climatic condi- 

 tions which we suppose to be favourable for the support of those 

 immense marsupials still exist in New Guinea, is it rash to conjecture 

 that some of these large creatures may be living there at the pre- 

 sent time ? Further researches may prove this. 



I will conclude with the following very apposite extract from 

 Wallace's ' Malay Archipelago ': — 



" From this outline of the subject, it will be evident how impor- 

 tant an adjunct natural history is to geology, not only in inter- 

 preting the fragments of extinct animals found in the earth's crust, 

 but in determining past changes in the surface which have no geolo- 

 gical record. It is certainly a wonderful and unexpected fact that 

 an accurate knowledge of the distribution of birds and insects should 

 enable us to map out lands and continents which disappeared beneath 

 the ocean long before the earliest traditions of the human race. 

 Wherever the geologist can explore the earth's surface, he can read 

 much of its past history and can determine approximately its latest 

 movements above and below the sea-level ; but wherever oceans and 

 seas now extend, he can do nothing but speculate on the very limited 

 data afforded by the depth of the waters. Here the naturalist stepa 

 in, and enables him to fill up this great gap in the past history of 

 the earth." — Sydney Morning Herald, March 8, 1876. 



On a new hind of Psorospermia (Lithocystis Schneideri), parasitic in 

 Echinocardium cordatum. By M. A. Giaed. 



If the test of an Echinocardium be opened in an equatorial plane, 

 we find almost constantly in the general cavity of that Echinoderm 

 a parasitic production of singular appearance. This is met with 



