TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION C. 615 



These fossils occur in a band of hard hlue slate, which only splits after being 

 exposed to the weather for a time. It passes up into a crushed Augen-shale, 

 containing ashy material, and appears to be the bed immediately underlying the 

 earliest volcanic ash-beds of this region. 



7. Preliminary Note on a Carboniferous Fish Fauna from Victoria, 

 Australia. By A. Smith Woodward, LL.D., F.R.S. 



The researches of Dr. Traquair have proved that in Britain there is a definite 

 succession of Devonian and Carboniferous fish faunas. When sufficiently well- 

 preserved fossils are available, these faunas can be readily distinguished and 

 recognised, and they always occur in the same stratigraphical order. There is 

 also considerable evidence of a similar succession on the continent of Europe, in 

 Spitzbergen, and in North America. 



Much interest was therefore aroused, twelve years ago, when the late Sir 

 Frederick M'Coy announced that a mixture of representatives of all these different 

 faunas had been discovered in a bed of Paleozoic Red Sandstone in Australia.^ 

 These fossils were found at the supposed base of the Carboniferous system in the 

 valley of the Broken River, near Mansfield, Victoria. The first fragments were 

 discovered by Mr. Reginald Murray ; a large series of remains was afterwards col- 

 lected by the Rev. A. Cresswell for the Geological Survey of Victoria ; and 

 valuable additions were also made by Mr. George Sweet, F.G.S., of Melbourne, 

 The complete collection was placed in the Melbourne Museum, and Sir Frederick 

 M'Coy's report was the result of his preliminary study of it. 



Unfortunately, notwithstanding the interest of this important discovery, no 

 definite information concerning it has hitherto been published. Before his death 

 M'Coy was only able to supervise the drawing of some plates to illustrate a 

 memoir which he hoped to prepare. The specimens proved to be too fragmentary, 

 and the materials for comparison in the Australian museums too inadequate for 

 him to arrive at any satisfactory results. The whole collection has therefore been 

 sent to me by Professors Baldwin Spencer and J. W. Gregory ; and at present I 

 am engaged in the work of preparing the projected memoir for the Geological 

 Survey of Victoria. 



With ample facilities for the study of the collection, it now appears that 

 M'Coy's original report was based on a complete misinterpretation of many of the 

 fragments. Far from displaying a ' mixture of Lower Devonian, Upper Devonian, 

 and types related to some of the Calciferous Sandstone series,' as M'Coy supposed, 

 the Broken River collection is typically and essentially Carboniferous; and some 

 of the specimens are of great interest, both from the ichthyologist's and from the 

 geologist's point of view. 



None of the specimens or drawings are labelled with the names proposed for 

 them by M'Coy, and none of his manuscript notes are forthcoming. I am thus 

 unable to recognise all his identifications with certainty. Most of them, however, 

 are distinguishable ; and it is, in any case, sure that I have the whole of the 

 material which was at his disposal. 



The fossils regarded by M'Coy as Lower Devonian in facies received the 

 names of Rytidaspis murrayi and Pteraspis ('?) maiisfieldensis. The former 

 was said to be of the same shape as Cep/ialaspis, the latter not more than 

 generically distinct from Pteraspis. There are, however, in the collection no 

 remains either of Cephalaspidians or Pteraspidians, or any types related to them. 

 I do not know to which fossil the name Rytidaspis was applied, but it is evident 

 that impressions of some gular plates of a large Rhizodont fish were mistaken for 

 the supposed Pteraspis. 



The determination of the remains claimed to be of a later Devonian type is 

 equally unsatisfactory. The only Acanthodiau sufficiently well preserved for 



' F. M'Coy, < Report on Palaeontology for the year 1889.' Ann. Rep. Sec. Mines, 

 Victoria, 1889 (1890), pp. 23, 24. 



