30 



Notes on the Muddy Creek Beds, ^witkl 

 brief rema.rks on other tertiary strata 

 OF South Western Victoria. 



By Joiix Dennant, F.G.S., Corr. Memb. 



[Read October 2nd, 1888.] 



PLATE I. 



I. IXTRODUCTIOX. 



Perhaps there are no fossiliferous deposits in Australia which 

 have been more frequently visited than the Muddy Creek beds, 

 not only by geologists, but also by those led thither by curiosity 

 merely. Their short distance from Hamilton, the beauty of the 

 scenery, the ease with which the fossils can be obtained, and last, 

 but not least, the warm welcome accorded to visitors by the pro- 

 prietors of the land where the beds are situated, combine to make 

 Muddy Creek an especially pleasant place for a day's outing. 



Up to the present time, however, no attemj^t has, I believe, 

 been made to describe the strata, though the fossils themselves 

 have engaged the attention of our ablest pala?ontologists. Many 

 years ago, the Rev. J. T. AVoods worked industriously at the beds, 

 and to him we are indebted for a knowledge of a large number of 

 the most characteristic forms found in them. Subsequently, Pro- 

 fessor Tate spent some time at Muddy Creek, and made an exten- 

 sive collection of fossils, including many new species. Since then, 

 owing to the labours of various collectors, the material awaiting 

 description has been gradually accumulating. A perusal of the 

 Transactions of this Society for the last few years will show that 

 Professor Tate has made great progress in dealing with it, espe- 

 cially of late, in his systematic revision of the Australian Tertiary 

 Mollusca, three instalments of which have already apjDeared. In 

 the Prodromus of the Palaeontology of Victoria, Professor McCoy 

 has published excellent drawings and descriptions of about 35 

 species found in the Muddy Creek beds. Descriptions of many 

 species have also been given by the Rev. J. T. Woods, F.G.S., in 

 the Transactions of the principal Scientific Societies of the 

 colonies. 



Nor have the English geologists been behindhand in the inte- 

 rest taken in these and other Australian Tertiary deposits, the 

 Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society containing valuable 

 memoirs upon the Corals and the Echinodermata by Professor M. 

 Duncan, and upon the Bryozoa by Mr. A. W. Waters, F.G.S. 



