THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. (55 



THE FOSSIL MA:\1MALIAK REMAINS OF TASMANIA 



COMPARED WITH THOSE OF THE AUSTRALIAN 



MAINLAND. 



Bv S. H. WiNTLE. F.L.S. 



(Continued.) 

 Read before the Fiel I Naturalists' Club of Victoria, July 12, 1886. 



This sliell deposit is overlain by a stratum of arenaceous vegetable 

 soil^ supporting a forest of Eucalyptus, Casuarina, and Banksia^ 

 the|.M'i»ar.£vequjently attaining a lieiglit of 70 and 80 feet, with boles 

 propdrti'Giiately tliick. Tlie impression likely to be conveyed to the 

 miial of t:he-;bebo1der by tliis mantle of arborean vegetation flourishing 

 over the shell bed, is that of comparative antiquity of these marine 

 remains. But such an influence will be greatly modified when it is 

 remembered how rapid is the growth of the Eucalyptus in Tasmania, 

 especially E. globulus, and E. viininalis. The bones in question 

 had lost all traces of animal oil, otherwise they had undergone no 

 petrifaction. The late J. E. Calder, Esq., formerly Surveyor 

 General of Tasmania for very many years, liad in iris possession a 

 portion of the humerus of a whale. This fossil was about 3 feet in 

 length, and almost completely silicified, so much so, that it was 

 capable of taking a good polish. He obtained it in a pliocene 

 tei'tiary deposit at Swan Islan<l, near Cape Portland, in Bank's 

 tStraits, many years ago, 



In point of age this fossil bone corresponds to the fossil bones of a 

 whale found on the sliores (if Hobson's Bay at Chelteidiam, and is, 

 consequently, much older than the cetacean remains which I have 

 just alhided to. The only other instance of discovering an osseous relic 

 in Tasmania is that of the patella of a cetaceon which I unearthed 

 in a shell bed at Sandy Bay, twenty years ago. Tliat Raised Beach 

 occupies an altitude rif about fifty feet above high water mark, am! 

 like that at Sorell, is of recent, or Post Tertiary age. 



From the foregoing it will be seen that owing to some unexplahied 

 cause, the osseous palceontology of Tasmania not only throws very 

 little light upon tlie antiquity of its Fauna, but is insignificant in 

 comparison with that of the mainland. Her caverns have yielded 

 nothing that gives a clue, as far as I know, to the antiquity of the now 

 extinct human race. Such human bones and native implements as 

 have been brought to light have been found in the latest superficial 

 deposits of humus ; and in this respect the Australian mahiland i.^ 

 no better off. The few human remains exhumed are principally 

 skulls, and this may be acc(junted f«n' by the fact that it was the 

 custom of the a1)origines to burn their dead. The late Rowland 



