352 



NATURE 



{March 2, 1876 



The remainder of the skeleton is imperfectly known, but 

 apparently agrees in its general characters with the other 

 Proboscideans. Its remains have been met with in 

 abundance at Eppelsheim, near Darmstadt, and also in 

 various other Miocene formations in the South of Ger- 

 many, France, and Greece ; in Asia Minor, Attock in 

 the Punjab and Perim Island, but whether all belong- 

 ing to one species {D.giganteu7n, Kaup.) or to several, 

 the materials are not at present sufficient to determine. 

 The genus has not hitherto been found in England or in 

 America. 



The gradual transition in the character of the molar 

 teeth of various Proboscideans is well illustrated by 

 the following table (compiled from Dr. Falconer's Me- 

 moirs) of the "ridge formula" of various species. The 

 numbers are, however, only averages, and it must be 

 remarked that the higher the numerical expression of the 

 ridge formula in the species the more liable is the number 

 of ridges to vary within certain limits, especially in the 

 teeth of the lower jaw, where they are often in excess. 

 Several species, apparently intermediate in ridge formula 

 to those in the table, have since been discovered, as Mas- 

 todon pentelici and atidiutn, which break down the dis- 

 tinction between the sections TrilopJiodon and Tetralo- 

 phtdon, and Ehphas melitensis between Loxodon and 

 Euelephas. 



Milk True 



Molars. Molars. 



Total. 



I. II. III. I 



Dinotherium giganteum 



Mastodon {Trilophoaon) amerUanus 

 Mastodon ( Tetralophodon) arver- 



nensis 



Mastodon {Pentalopkodon) sivalensis 



Elephas {Stegodon) insignis 



Elephas {Loxodon) africantis 

 Elephas {Loxodon) meridionalis ... 

 Elephas ( Euelephas) antiquus 

 Elephas {Euelephas) prinvgenius .. 

 Elephas {Euelephas) indicus 



2 3 



2 3 



3 4 



4 5 



5 7 



6 7 

 6 8 

 6 10 

 8 12 

 8 12 



16 



28 



39 

 41 

 46 



57 

 76 



76 



{To be continued. ) 



THE FIRST GENERAL GEOLOGICAL MAP OF 

 A USTRALIA ^ 



FROM its vast size and its peculiar conditions of physical 

 geography the island-continent of Australia presents 

 formidable difficulties alike to the topographical and the 

 geological surveyor. Of its wide desert interior we know 

 nothing more than what has been seen or conjectured 

 along the tracks of the few adventurous men who have 

 penetrated it. The eastern and southern colonies have 

 been more or less thoroughly geologised, and expeditions 

 have been sent to make known the capabilities of portions 

 of the western and northern coasts. Several of the 

 colonies have equipped geological surveys, though they 

 have not always cared to maintain them. A great deal 

 of miscellaneous knowledge regarding the rocks of the 

 country has thus been acquired, but it is scattered through 

 hundreds of blue-books, reports, memoirs, transactions of 

 societies, newspapers, and other publications. Those who 

 are most familiar with Australian geology, can best judge 

 whether the time has now come when this store of diffused 

 information may be profitably condensed in the form of a 

 general map of the whole country. Mr. Brough Smyth 

 has deemed that it may, and accordingly he has produced 

 the present map — the first general geological map of 

 Australia which, so far as we are aware, has been pub- 

 lished. 



No one could have performed so well as Mr. Smyth the 

 difficult task of compiling this map. From his official 

 position as Secretary for Mines in Victoria, he has, of 



I First sketch of a geological map of Australia, mcludiii£ Tasmania. By 

 R. Brough Smyth, F.G.S., &c. 



course, unequalled facilities for doing justice to his own 

 Colony ; and from correspondence with the government de- 

 partments of the other colonies, he has obtained access to 

 all the stores of information which successive surve) s and 

 expeditions have brought into the archives of the different 

 governments. In the winter of 1872-3 he obtained the 

 consent of his own government to his plan for elaborating 

 a general map of Australia, and he immediately set to 

 work to solicit information from all quarters. In his 

 Progress Report, dated Oct. i, 1873, he acknowledged 

 the assistance already received from Queensland, Western 

 Australia, South Australia, and Tasmania, but regretted 

 the existence of many blanks, instancing in particular the 

 want of a geological map of the important colony of 

 New South Wales. The present map, however, bears the 

 conspicuous date of April 25, 1873, though confessedly 

 incomplete in October of that year, and not published 

 until November 1875. ^^^- Smyth's name alone appears 

 on the title. No doubt he will take care to state fully in 

 the text which it is proposed to issue in illustration of the 

 map, the share which others have had in the real geo- 

 logical surveying of which he has so carefully gathered 

 the fruit. Still, when we think of the many years of hard 

 bodily and mental toil which such men as W. B, Clarke, 

 Selwyn, Daintree, and others have given to the working 

 out of Australian geology, we cannot help expressing a 

 feeling of disappointment that on the fore-front of this 

 first geological map of the country no place should have 

 been found for their names. 



With the exception of this omission, which may have 

 arisen from inadvertence, and may yet be fully atoned 

 for, little but the most unqualified praise is to be given 

 to this map. We have already had occasion to call 

 attention in this journal to Mr. Brough Smyth's great 

 energy, and to the important services which he is render- 

 ing, not only to the industrial development of Victoria, 

 but to the progress of geology. He has probably never 

 accomplished, however, any task more likely to be of 

 service in Australia or more useful to geologists in other 

 countries than this first sketch of a geological map of that 

 great region. Though the scale of the map is only 7757)^^(75^ 

 or 1 10 miles to an inch, it is no doubt quite large enough 

 for a beginning. It shows the salient features of the 

 geology without too many confusing details. As a speci- 

 men of cartography, the map is one of the best which has 

 recently appeared, and it does great credit to the taste 

 and skill of the engravers and lithographers of the 

 Mining Department at Melbourne, where it has been 

 produced. 



The first point about this map which will probably occur 

 to most geologists is the comparatively large area over 

 which it has been found possible to spread geological 

 colours. The surveys and explorations of Queensland, 

 New South Wales, Victoria, Southern and Western 

 Australia, have sufficed to furnish materials for colouring 

 most of the maritime tracts, as well as a large part of the 

 eastern half of the continent. But it might have been 

 supposed that in spite of the journals of the few adven- 

 turers who have crossed the interior, that great inland 

 desert would have been left an uncoloured blank upon 

 the map. Mr. Smyth, however, has made the most of 

 every scattered notice and stray observation. He has, 

 coloured the exploring tracks across the country in such 

 a way as to suggest very clearly what must be the geo- 

 logical structure of the interior. The eastern mountain- 

 chain bringing up the crystalline and older palaeozoic 

 rocks from Bass Strait to Torres Strait is well shown. 

 On the western coast an enormous mass of granite is 

 marked as stretching over fifteen degrees of latitude, and 

 spreading far into the interior, where it seems to pass 

 under the vast sheets of "desert sandstone," which 

 occupy so much of the low interior of Australia. Car- 

 boniferous rocks are coloured over large spaces in Eastern 

 Queensland, but the compiler of this map stops the tint 



