Eocene Corals, Central New Guinea. 533 
the literature on them has been recently given in the memoir by 
Mr. R. B. Newton (1916). 
In British New Guinea the first known Kainozoic beds were the 
Plocene and Pleistocene. A review of the earlier literature was 
given by Mr. Robert Etheridge, fil. (in Thomson, 1892, pp. 208-15, 
and in Jack & Etheridge, 1892, pp. 696-7). At that date the beds 
best known were those in the neighbourhood of Yule Island and the 
adjacent parts of the coasts of south-eastern New Guinea; and they 
are Pliocene and Pleistocene in age. Mr. Gibb Maitland refers 
(18938, p. 62) in his valuable memoir on the Geology of British New 
Guinea to the occurrence of the raised coral reefs ranging from sea- 
level to the height of 2,000 feet; and he remarks that there is no 
reliable evidence as to their geological age. Subsequently Eocene 
beds were recorded from Dutch New Guinea, as in the Wilhelmina 
Mountains (Martin, 1911) and at Triton Bay; and also in German 
New Guinea, as in the Torricelli Mountains and Humboldt Bay 
(Rutten, in Wichmann, 1914, pp. 42-3), in Celebes (Biicking, 1902), 
in Sumatra (Volz, 1904, p. 89), and in Java (Martin, 1900, 1915, 
ete.). The Kocene foraminiferal limestones no doubt represent the 
great Nummulitic limestone of the Mediterranean and Southern 
Asia, for some of them are referred to the Middle Eocene. Beneath 
this marine series there are in many places continental deposits 
sometimes containing coal (as in Java, Martin, 1900, p. 243) and 
sometimes yielding oil. Owing to this association of land and 
marine deposits it is natural to find that shallow-water beds with 
reef-building corals frequently occur in the Eocene beds. Thus 
Biicking (1904, pp. 177, 149) quotes Koperberg as authority for the 
existence of coral limestones in Celebes up to 1,000 metres above the 
sea, and Retgers for the occurrence of corals with Mummulites at 
Malawa in Celebes. Comparatively little has, however, been 
published on the Eocene corals of this Archipelago. The most 
important communication is that by Fritsch (1875) on the Eocene 
corals of Borneo. Martin (1881, pp. 73, 82-3) quotes Pleistocene 
corals from Southern New Guinea, and refers to the occurrence of 
corals with the Old Miocene limestone; and as he says these 
limestones include Alveolina they may be Eocene, but he does not 
describe the corals. The lists from Sumatra by Volz (1904, pp. 89, 90) 
include many species of corals from the Upper Pliocene, but none 
from the Eocene. The Miocene and Pliocene coral faunas are known 
from Java (Reuss, 1866, and Felix, 1913), Sumatra (Volz, 1904, 
p. 90), and from the collection by Dr. Andrews at Christmas Island 
(Gregory, 1900). 
The nearest well-known fauna of Kocene reef corals is that 
described by Duncan (1880) from Sind. There is a certain generic 
resemblance between the two faunas, but some of the most typical of 
the Sind genera are absent from the New Guinea collection; and 
we have been able to refer only one of the New Guinea Kocene 
corals to previously known species. 
The corals therefore strongly confirm the opinions of Martin 
(1915, p. 222) and Oppenheim (1901, p. 309) as to the remarkable 
isolation of the Eocene fauna of Malaysia. The presence of the 
