FEB 19 1896 
121 
a minor zone of the Hocene may possibly be demonstrated—at 
any rate, the matter is worthy of further research. 
At the north end of the section, in the topmost clays, near 
Bird Rock, Mr. Mulder has pointed out that Ancillaria hebera is 
a very frequent shell, though quite rare in other parts of the beds. 
Further peculiarities of the fauna have also been traced, which 
induce him to think that these clays mark a minor zone of 
deposition. 
APPENDIX. 
In No. VIII. of the Progress Reports of the Geological Survey 
of Victoria issued last year, notes (accompanied by a list of 
fossils) are contributed by Mr. James Stirling concerning the age 
of the lower members of the Tertiaries in Victoria, in the course 
of which some remarks by Professor McCoy, criticising adversely 
our views on the subject, are quoted. His criticisms are unsup- 
ported by any argument worthy of the name, and mainly consist 
in an oracular repetition of opinions expressed by him 30 years 
ago, before a tithe of the fossils now listed had been described or 
even discovered. 
We are told that we argue in a circle, and that the pure as- 
sumption was first of all made that Muddy Creek and Schnapper 
Point were Eocene, the other beds resembling them of course then 
coming into the same category. We can only characterise such 
a remark as a simple impertinence. 
Sir F. McCoy appears to object to any Australian deposits 
being called Eocene unless the fossil species are identical with 
those occurring in the London Clay, Paris Basin, or other Euro- 
pean Eocenes, peculiar Australian species being open to grave 
suspicion. The Australian fauna and flora are markedly peculiar 
at the present day, and is it likely that a different state of things 
obtained in Hocene times ? 
It is further said that, as an examination of the polyzoa just 
completed shows 12 per cent. of recent species in the Muddy 
Creek and Schnapper Point beds, these cannot be Eocene. We 
have not yet seen the descriptions alluded to, but remark that 
the polyzoa are not an accepted basis for the classification of 
Tertiary strata. 
Finally, we make the emphatic statements, and challenge Sir 
F. McCoy to disprove them, (1) that the proportion of recent 
species in the Muddy Creek and Schnapper Point beds is less 
than 34 per cent., which is Sir Charles Lyell’s limit for an Eocene 
fauna ; and (2) that the facies of their mollusca is characteristi- 
cally Hocene when compared with those of the Paris Basin. 
