10 



On some Australian Species of the Family 

 Arch.^ogyathin.e. 



By R. ETHERioaE, Jun., Paheontologist to the Australian 

 Museum and Geological Survey of N. S. Wales 



Plates II. and III. 

 [Read December 3rd, 1889.] 



Some months ago I received from Prof. Ralph Tate, F.L.S., 

 &c., of Adelaide University, the fossils which form the subject of 

 the present notice. After some trouble they were provisionally 

 determined as Archceocyatlius, a low form of invertebrate life 

 characteristic of the Cambrian strata of North America, and 

 laid aside pending the appearance of a memoir on this and allied 

 genera by my friend George Jennings Hinde, Ph.D., which I 

 casually heard was in preparation. This having now appeared,* 

 the subject may be well resumed. 



Dr. Hinde's excellent paper renders it quite unnecessary for 

 me to retraverse old ground, but simply recommending it to those 

 interested in these remarkable genera as an admirable solution of 

 a difficult and obscure subject, I may at once proceed to compare 

 the Australian fossils with the various genera comprising the 

 Family Ardiceocyathince. 



First, however, it is requisite to fix the localities of the Aus- 

 tralian fossils. They are from Ardrossan, Yorke's Peninsula ; 

 the Wirrialpa and Blinman Mines, near the Blinman, a mining 

 township on Eurilkina Creek, Flinders Range ; and Kanyka, 

 north-east of Port Augusta. 



The only geological information I am in possession of relates 

 to the first of these localities. The Ardrossan rocks appear ta 

 have been first described by Mr. Otto Tepper, and we are also 

 indebted to him for the first discovery of its fossils. In his 

 paper, " Introduction to the Cliffs and Rocks at Ardrossan "f he 

 describes the Palaeozoic rocks as consisting of the Ardrossan 

 sandstone overlain unconformably by Tertiary rocks, and confor- 

 mably below it a variegated and dark-coloured limestone and 

 white and yellow marbles, called the Parara limestone. He re- 

 marks — " Both varieties of the upper marbles contain distinct 



*0n ArchcvocycUhuSy Billings, and on other Genera allied to or associated 

 with it from the Cambrian Strata of North America, &c. — Quart. Journ, 

 Geol. Soc, 1889, XIV., p. 125. 



t Trans, and Proc. Phil. Soc, Adelaide, for 1878-79 (1879), p. 70. 



