.\fi\fctlhnir<ius. 1 9 1 



Tlie fossils from Hall's Souml iiri- unfortunutely uot in u good state 

 of prosorvution, bein^ mostly iiuiit'rtei-t ciMts ; hut umongst them 

 aplKtar to ho tlu- followiii';: — 



Volutd macropterit (a small spcoimoii ), Fuhtt'i antiiinrfulatu, Ostrea, 

 Cythenfo, Crassatella ('!), Pecten, TuniteUa, Nalica, Triton {'!), Do- 

 liumi^^), Astartc, Corhnla, Ledu, Venus, Ci/pra-a, two Kcbinodcrnis. 



Most of the ahovc 1 have found in the Victorian beds ; and two of 

 them have been fij^ured and described by Prof. Zil'Coy in his Decade 

 No. 1 of the ' I'ala?i>ntolotry <>f Victoria.' 



The .small sjiecimen of calcareous clay from the Katau river, on 

 the west side of the (Julf of Papua, contains only a few broken frag- 

 ments of .shells ; but it appears to b(^ of the same formation as tho 

 clay beds of Hall's Sound or Yule Island. 



The Oolitic limestDue of Bramble Cay 1 believe to be also of the 

 upper lieds of this Miocei^e formation. 



Mr. Macleay, in his letter to the 'Sydney Morninf? Herald' of 

 October 11, 187'), describes the formation of Yule Island as a sedi- 

 mentaj-y rock, nearly horizontal on the sea-face, but with a great dip 

 inwards. The rock itself is calcareous, and compo.sed of corals, 

 shells, Echi^ii, &c. — in fact a concrete of fossils resembling the Coral- 

 rag of Oxford. Mr. D'Albertis also gives a similar description of 

 the formation of Yule Island, and mentions the occurrence of basaltic 

 trap in the valleys, and that the higher portion of the hills (which 

 attain a height of 700 or 800 feet above the sea-level) are composed 

 of coralline limestone. It is worthy of remark that in Victoria the 

 Miocene strata occur in a similar manner — yellow and blue calca- 

 reous (lays full of fossil shells, overlain by thick beds of coralline 

 limestone consisting of an aggregate of comminuted fragments 

 of corals, shells, and echinodcrms. 



The discoveiy of these Miocene beds on the southern coast of New 

 Guinea is one of considerable importance. Their occurrence, I 

 believe, suggests the former land-connexion of New Guinea with 

 the Australian continent ; and this belief is further borne out by the 

 fact of the shallowness of the intervening sea. I am not aware that 

 any Miocene rocks have yet been identified as such on the northern 

 coa.st of the Cape-Y'ork peninsula ; but it is not improbable that the 

 ferruginous sandstone described by Mr. Macleay as overlying tho 

 poqthyritic granite at Cape Y'^ork, and perhaps other Tertiary deposits 

 which may occur in that locality, may be correlated with the Miocene 

 beds on the opposite coast of New Guinea. 



Wallace, referring to this subject in his very interesting and 

 valuable work 'The ]SIalay Archipelago,' says : — "It is interesting 

 to observe among the islands themselves how a shallow sea always 



intimates a recent land-connexion AVe lind that all the islands 



from Celebes and Lomliock eastward exhibit almost as close a 

 resemblance to Australia and New Guinea as the western islands do 

 to Asia." And again : — " Australia, with its drj- winds, its open 

 plains, its stony deserts, and its temperate climate, produces birds 

 and quadrupeds which are closely related to those inhabiting the hot 



