- and Paleontology of Victoria. 191 
méasures as much as the four molars of the fossil species, the 
premolar of which thus stands entirely in front of the corre- 
sponding tooth in the three living ones of the same size. This 
wombat enables me thus to connect the gold-drifts in age with 
the more superficial red clays, in which the bones of the lake- 
timboon &c. are found. And here we find, with the living dingo, 
or native wild dog, inhabiting the neighbouring localities at 
present, skulls and teeth of the Sarcophilus ursinus, or “ Tas- 
manian devil,” which now is only known to exist in Tasmania, 
and has never been. known on the mainland; with these are 
the bones and teeth of the gigantic extinct kangaroos (the Ma- 
cropus Titan and the M. Atlas), as well as bones and teeth of the 
gigantic extinct genera Nototherium and Diprotodon. The spe- 
cies of the latter occurring in Victoria is quite distinct from 
those of the more northern parts of the continent; it is the 
Diprotodon longiceps (M‘Coy), readily distinguished by the more 
slender, elongate proportion of the jaws. The ordinary gold- 
drifts of Victoria, from the association (more or less direct) with 
these fossils, may thus be taken to be of the newer Pliocene or 
Mammaliferous Crag period, like those of Russia, determined by 
Sur R. Murchison. 
MIOCENE PERIOD. 
Under the Pleistocene and Pliocene deposits above alluded to 
are a series of plant-beds in a few localities, with a totally dif- 
ferent facies from the recent flora of the country, not one species 
being identical; nor are the characteristic genera represented, 
but an entirely extinct series of species having generic and 
general resemblance to the foliage of Asiatic plants of tropical 
types of dicotyledonous plants, of which the Laurus is the most 
conspicuous. Many of the forms are closely allied to those of 
the Miocene plant-beds of the Rhine country. In apparently 
the same position, in much more numerous localities, the marine 
deposits of sands and clays full of shells, echinoderms, corals, with 
occasional fish, and with still rarer marine mammalian remains, 
occupy wide areas just under the Pliocene beds. These have 
the general facies (and even specific identity) of so many species 
so clearly marked, that there cannot be the slightest doubt of 
the great thickness of those beds being lower Miocene of the 
date and general character of the Faluns of Touraine, the Bor- 
deaux and the Malta beds, while the base of the series blends 
imperceptibly with a series of beds having a slightly older facies, 
and rendering the adoption of the Oligocene formation of Bey- 
rich as convenient for Victorian as for European geologists. 
The only marine mammal of which I have seen portions which 
could be identified in those beds is a new species of Squalodon 
