some interesting specimens were exhibited by Mr. Dairon, 
whose collection was also specially rich in Graptolites 
_ from the neighbourhood of Moffat. Mr. Dairon exhibited 
Liassic fossils from the Whit»y district, and Mr, Bell 
illustrated the Liassic system of the Isle of Skye. 
_ -Mr. Wiinsch, one of the vice-presidents of the Society, 
was as strong as any exhibitor of volcanic minerals col- 
lected by himself on Vesuvius and Etna, and in the 
volcanic district of the Auvergne Mountains. The same 
gentleman showed specimens of the fossilised remains of 
a primeval forest which he found in association with vol- 
canic ash onthe shores of the island of Arran a few years 
~ ago. 
. o There is no public museum in Glasgow that is worthy 
of the name in which these collections could find a home, 
Overtures have been made, in at least one instance, to 
secure many of the specimens for museums or for private 
collections elsewhere. It will afford room for profound 
regret ifthe ultimate possession of such collections should 
be diverted from the west of Scotland, where they have 
almost entirely been collected. Surely the wealthy coal- 
masters, ironmasters, shipbuilders, manufacturers, mer- 
chants, and others in Glasgow and the surrounding district, 
are not so supremely devoted to money-getting that they 
cannot amongst them raise a fund of a few thousand 
pounds to found a museum, the geological position of 
which shall have as a nucleus those priceless collections 
already referred to. Possibly some definite shape may 
be given to this idea when, in the course of the next 
few years, the British Association holds its third meeting 
in Glasgow, on which occasion the Glasgow geolo- 
gists will not fail to gratifythe longings of their geologi- 
cal friends elsewhere, many of whom have but a faint 
idea of the intellectual feast which is in store for them. 
JOHN MAYER 
. 
" 
THE RISING OF AUSTRALIA 
_* ahead that the gradual elevation of the land in 
; the Australian portion of the southern hemisphere 
_ is attracting the attention of European geologists, I am 
induced to forward a few observations thereon, based 
_ upon personal investigation. 
In March last, in a letter to the editor of this journal, 
under the title of “ Circumpolar Land,” Mr. Howorth cites 
a passage from my paper on the geological structure of 
this portion of the island, viz., Hobart Town. My 
_ remarks upon these post-pliocene evidences of terrestrial 
_ elevation were necessarily brief, owing to the various 
formations treated of in that contribution. I now there- 
_ fore beg to draw the attention of the readers of NATURE 
_ to a few instances, in detail; for the reason that I am 
satisfied the question is one that demands the strictest 
_ inquiry in the present stage of geological science. 
Upon reading a paper before the Royal Society of 
_ Tasmania, in November 1864, on these shell deposits 
as evidence of recent upheaval of the coast, I found 
the majority of the observers there present regarded 
_them as having originated at the hands of the aborigines ; 
as being, in short, the refuse of their camps. But I then 
_ pointed out the fact that there were genera and species of 
_ testaceous remains far too small to have been taken by 
the blacks for the purpose of food. One argument at 
that time raised against my deductions was the fact 
that in some instances fragments of charcoal were found 
_ associated with the shells. Where thisis the case (though 
_ the instances known to me are few) I think I shall be able 
_ to show that it is to be traced to subsequent drift agency, 
and has no connection whatever with the formation of 
these shell beds. 
One of the most interesting of these deposits is to be 
seen at Sandy Bay, an indent of the estuary of the 
river Derwent, distant from the city two miles. In 
NATURE 
shell-bed three feet in thickness. 
mre et ve: 
129 
a bank formed by a road-cutting distant sixty yards 
inland, and forty feet above high-water mark, exists a 
The shells have a 
matrix of dark argillo-arenaceous soil, and beyond being 
more or less comminuted, especially the bivalves, exhibit 
few traces of geologicalage. Above the shell-bed repo-es 
a stratum of vegetable soil a few inches thick. The 
shells rest upon a stratum of brown clay, having no traces 
of organ’sms; and that, in turn, reposes on coarse- 
grained yellow sandstone, traversed by veins of marl 
near its surface, The shells are all of genera and species 
now found living in the water only sixty yards in front 
of and below the deposit. They principally consist of 
Mytilus, Turbo, Trochus, Delphinulus, Venus, Pecten, 
Ostrea, Patella, Cerethium, and Natica. In this bed 
a spoon-bowl-shaped fossil bone was found by a labourer 
employed in making the road, five years ago. A cast of 
the bone I recently forwarded to one of the first osteo- 
logists of the age for identification. I have little doubt, 
however, that it is a bone of the hyoidal process of some 
Cetacean. It is 2} inches in length, by 23 in breadth, and 
presents no further signs of decay than the associated 
shells. At the distance of a mile from this spot seaward, 
there is another shell-deposit which has an average thick- 
ness of two feet, reposing on a basaltic overflow, and 
which again reposes on an arenaccous yellow clay, thickly 
perforated by Pholas. These beds are exposed in a 
vertical section of between thirty and forty feet in height. 
Another locality where these evidences of recent eleva- 
tion of the coast are plainly seen, is in the Queen’s 
Domain, on the north eastern boundary of the city, and in 
the immediate vicinity cf Government House. Here, 
stells are exposed in the surface soil, 500 yards from the 
water-line of the estuary, but they are ina finely com- 
minuted condition. They are thickly interspersed through 
the beds of the Royal Society's Gardens adjoining. 
In the district of Lorre!, which is fourtcen miles 
from the last-named locality in an easterly direction, 
there is a long low sandy flat, whose mean elevation 
above the sea-level I estimate at ten feet only. The 
arenaceous soil of this plateau is thickly studded for about 
two square miles with oyster shells, some of them being 
much larger on the average than what are taken now. 
This plateau is separated from a cliff of sandstone by 
an arm of the sea about one mile wide and very shallow. 
The cliff is about eighty feet high and is known as the 
Bluff. On the top of this cliff is an extensive deposit of 
oyster shells corresponding in character to those in the 
flat below. Now, if a line were drawn from this bed of 
shells to the deposits referred to around Hobart Town, 
it would be found to occupy a mean altitude of these 
beds. The conclusion, I believe, to be arrived at from 
the fact of the same species of shells existing at such 
different levels above the sea as those on the cliff and 
those on the flat, is that the former are older than the 
latter, though both without doubt belong to the post- 
pliocene epoch, and that the land has been gradually 
rising since the shells on the cliff contained their in- 
habitants up to the present time. That a silting up 
agency has been in operation with regard to the latter 
deposit is evident. The oyster shells are those known 
as the mud oyster here, its habitat being mudbarks, 
Now they are found dispersed through an incoherent 
sandy deposit, derived from the erosion of the sandstone 
formations on the opposite shore. The counter-agency 
of such silting up is, however, infinitesimally small when 
compared to the scale on which the land is rising. 
I might multiply these instances of recent elevation 
of the land, did time and space permit, by mentioning 
numerous other examples round the coast of this island. 
Leaving Tasmania, and going to the Australian mainland, 
we find their analogues there. While on a geolegical 
visit to New South Wales and Victoria two )cais ago 
I was struck by the exact representatives of thise sa 
Se on SO a a Ce, A - 
J a" Rwy phe 4, oe Pawar ra iro 
nde! ws A ae ws! 
