347 



■consisfc of a small but very pretty lanceolate totjth, a very sharp 

 spine probably belonging to the dorsal fin, vertebrte, scale, and a 

 variety of small l)ones. 



Flora. 



In the two uppermost horizons examined (viz., 40 and 50 ft.) 

 very minute seed vessels are common, associated with vegetable 

 tissue, and a few pellets of hydrated oxide of iron. The seed 

 vessels are crushed flat, but show pitted surfaces, and in some 

 <;-ases tripartite divisional lines. 



The material from this bore was for the most part a loamy 

 sand, somewhat dense in the dry state, but readily softened by 

 <i few hours' soaking in water. Tlie residuum left from the 

 washings was either a very tine sand, that passes freely through 

 a sieve 75 threads to the inch, or minute crystals ; the material 

 being reduced in the process from rather less than a fourth to a 

 third of the original weight. The 100-ft. sample is a dark shale, 

 that required a little hand pressure to reduce. At 128 ft. a 

 tine-grained conglomerate occurs, the embedded fragments con- 

 sisting of a soft greenish slate (chloritic), more or less rounded, 

 the matrix being the hner portions of the same slates reduced to 

 a paste by trituration. The sample next the bed rock (153 ft.) 

 is a somewhat curious bed — an argillaceous sand, thickly studded 

 with small crystals of gypsum of a white or Ijrownish colour, 

 which constitute nearly one-fourth of the mass. Some of the 

 samples from this boring carry a considerable quantity of drift 

 wood and thin streaks of lignite, especially at 95 ft. Below the 

 50 ft. horizon no marine remains were oljserved, and the clays 

 partake of a gypseous character. A paucity of fossils is 

 characteristic of the gypseous beds of this formation, and may 

 account for the absence of calcareous organisms in the lower 

 parts of the section. 



TARKANINXA. 

 This boring was put down on the Clayton, about 30 miles 

 north-east of Hergott. It is by far the deepest bore which, up 

 to the present time, has been made in the Cretaceous beds of the 

 lakes district. Twenty samples were examined from the core of 

 this section, ranging from near the surface down to 1,226 feet. 

 The material was found to he fairly fossiliferous tlu'oughout, and 

 would no doubt yield many more forms if examined in larger 

 (quantities. In many cases the material when washed was so 

 limited that it could liave been all held in a lady's thimble. 



