Prof. F. M'Coy on the Cretaceous Deposits of Audralia. 333 



Pandanacea. — This order, like all the rest of Lindley's Aral 

 Alliance^ abounds in raphides. Besides the plants noticed in 

 the * Annals ' for May 1864, I have lately examined a leaf and 

 the bark of Pandanus odoratissimus and the root and a leaf of 

 Freycinetia imbricata. In the leaf of the former plant raphides 

 swarm, and occur more or less plentifully in the mesophloeum, 

 endophloeum, and alburnum ; of the latter plant raphides are 

 very abundant in the root, but less so in the leaf. 



Thus, as far as these observations warrant the inference, 

 Pterisanthes and Leea have the intimate structure of a Vitis, 

 while the two species of Rhaganus {Bersama or Natalia) depart 

 from that structure, but agree well together. Acorus and Gym- 

 nostachys are deficient in the raphidian character of their allies; 

 and the Vellozise differ in like manner from Hsemodorese, Cono- 

 stylese, Pandanese, and Cyclanthese. 



Edenbridge, Oct. 14, 1866. 



XXXVIII. — Note on the Cretaceous Deposits of Australia. By 

 Frederick M'Coy, Professor of Natural Science in the Uni- 

 versity of Melbourne, and Director of the National Museum 

 of Victoria. 

 Messrs. D. Carson and J. Sutherland, of Collins Street, Mel- 

 bourne, recently placed in my hands, for our public Museum, 

 a series of specimens which they collected on the western bank 

 of the Flinders River, at the base of Walker's Table Mountain, 

 nearly in the middle of the continent, in lat. 21° 13' and 

 long. 143° 25'. The examination of these enables me to an- 

 nounce for the first time with certainty the existence of the 

 Cretaceous formations in Australia. Mr. Gregory doubtfully 

 indicated Cretaceous fossils in his last paper to the Geological 

 Society, but without any generic or specific recognition of fos- 

 sils of that age ; and his materials, when referred to by the officers 

 of the Geological Society, were only quoted as Mesozoic. Mr. 

 Selwyn also alluded formerly to a specimen of an Echinide in 

 flint, given to him as found in gravel in sinking a well at 

 Prahran, near Melbourne, having been identified by me as the 

 European Cretaceous Conulus albogalerus ; and I had a flint 

 Ananchytes ovatus of the same age, given to me as found at 

 Richmond, near Melbourne also ; but both of those specimens 

 were unsatisfactory, as far as the proof of their having really 

 belonged to any Australian stratum. I can now, however, re- 

 cognize the Lower Chalk ; and this nearly fills up the great 

 series of marine Mesozoic formations supposed to be absent in 

 Australia when 1 left Europe, but most of which 1 have recog- 



