490 J. W. Gregory — Australian Echirioidea. 



tunity for the working out of the sequence of palaeontological zones ; 

 it is therefore probable that this series will serve as the scale with 

 which the disconnected beds of other localities will be compared ; 

 hence Prof. Tate's terms, 1 Upper, Middle and Lower Murravian, may 

 be conveniently adopted. The beds at Mordillac, and some other 

 Gippsland localities belong to the highest part of the marine 

 Cainozoics, and their correlation with the Upper Murravian seems 

 generally admitted. The beds at Mount Gambier, Wauru Ponds, 

 Muddy Creek, Geelong, Bird Eock Point, and Cape Otway are 

 referred to the Middle Murravian ; no serious effort to establish 

 a precise correlation of the beds at these localities seems to have 

 been made, but their Echinoid faunas have much in common ; thus 

 of the four species from Mount Gambier, three occur in the middle 

 division of the Murray River beds, and the fourth occurs at Cape 

 Otway ; of the four at Cape Otway, one (Holaster difflcilis — an 

 unsatisfactory species) is peculiar, one occurs at Mount Gambier, and 

 the other two in the Middle Murravian of the typical locality. 



The collection made by Mr. Woodward has a somewhat oldish 

 facies : Pericosmus compressus (Dune.) is elsewhere commonest in 

 the Lower Murravian beds, while the species characteristic of the 

 upper division are absent. Hence though the evidence is insufficient 

 for any positive opinion, it is probable that the beds at this point 

 will turn out to be Lower Murravian. 



When considering the distribution of the Australian Cainozoic 

 Echinoidea, one must compare them with those from New Zealand 

 made known to us by the labours of Prof, von Zittel 2 and Prof. 

 E. W. Hutton. 3 The latter has described a fauna from the Curiosity 

 Shop beds, which in its main features greatly resembles that of 

 South Australia and Victoria, while some of the species are regarded 

 as identical. The brief diagnoses given by Prof. Hutton do not, in 

 the absence of illustrations, allow of any close comparison being 

 made between them and the Australian species : nevertheless the 

 resemblances are sufficient to show that they are of approximately 

 the same age, and to necessitate their inclusion in any full considera- 

 tion of the relations of the fauna. 



The attempt to correlate the Murravian beds with their European 

 equivalents is of course much more difficult than their classification. 

 Prof. Duncan, distrusting the application of European terms in such 

 distant regions, calls the Mount Gambier beds Middle Cainozoic, 

 those below that horizon the Lower, and those above the Upper 

 Cainozoic. 4 Profs. Selwyn and M'Coy and the authors of Skene's 

 map of Victoria, agree in the main with Prof. Duncan, though they 

 call the Gippsland beds Pliocene and the others Miocene and 



1 Tate, "Notes on the Correlations of the Coral-bearing Strata of South 

 Australia," Trans. Eoy. Soc. South Australia, vol. i. 1878, pp. 120-3. 



2 K. von Zittel, " JN'eue Mollusken und Echinodermen aus Neu-Seeland," Novara 

 Eeise, Palaeontologie. 



3 F. W. Hutton, " Catalogue of the Tertiary Mollusca and Echinodermata of 

 New Zealand," New Zealand Geol. Soc, Miscell. Public, ix. 1873. 



4 P. M. Duncan, "On the Fossil Corals of the Australian Tertiary Deposits," 

 Q.J.G.S. xxvi. 1870, p. 315. 



