200 '^'^^ TICTORIAX NATURALIST. [Vol. XXIII. 



Amongst Australian instances of palaeozoic coal, the 

 well-known Newcastle beds of New South Wales, some- 

 times called Hunterian, on account of their development 

 on the Hunter River, may be taken as a good representa- 

 tive; while nearer home we have the Jumbunna, Out- 

 trim, Cape Paterson, and other black coals of Victoria, 

 ■of the Mesozoic age. 



Turning now to cainozoic or tertiary time, we note a 

 very remarkable development of mammals, including man 

 himself, so that for this we sometimes hear the " Age of 

 Mammals" spoken of; but some persons have been so 

 impressed with the advent of man (and his importance) 

 that they have desired to introduce a fourth, or Quater- 

 nary, period for his reception, but the closer one studies 

 this period the more he is compelled to admit that the 

 Tertiarv period still exists, and that we may yet be a 

 long way from the conclusion of its events. The most 

 important group of fossils for the determination of the 

 relative age of the subdivisions of Tertiary time is the 

 Mollusca, or shell-fish, which, when treated fairly and 

 thoroughly, yield remarkably reliable results. Thus, 

 when a thorough studv of the shells of any zoological 

 region is made, what is more reasonable than to make 

 comparisons and contrasts with the fossil shells of the 

 same region of older date, and one method of giving 

 expression to this idea is to work out the percentage of 

 recent or living to- extinct forms. Then the dawn of 

 recent life, termed Eocene, shows the furthest removal 

 from recent forms, whilst the other terms grade up\vards 

 till we actually come to the present time. 



Plant remains are also abundant in our rocks of ter- 

 tiary age, and of a type more or less closely allifed to 

 •our ordinary forest trees, and these have given rise to our 

 immense brown coal deposits, which some day must be 

 turned to good account. Mornington is one of our happy 

 hunting grounds for showing some of the changes \vhich 

 took place in the earlier part of our tertiary time, for. 

 following on from the terrestrial conditions as represented 

 by the mesozoic coal -bearing rocks which outcrop on the 

 foreshore a little to the south of Grice's Creek, we have 

 evidence of a continuation of terrestri'al conditions, with 

 drift deposits into comparatively shallow water, and the 

 formation of leaf -beds and lignite deposits. Then over 

 these deposits came an outpouring of molten lava, giving 

 us the earliest of our tertiary eruptions ; but the magni- 

 tude of it is difficult to grasp, as Nature has wrought 



