Notices of Memoirs — The Victorian Tertiaries. 517 



liorizons represented were not very different in age. With those 

 conclusions I fully concur. 



The vertebrate evidence appears to me to support the same 

 determination. The appearance of SqnaIodo7i, Scnldicetus, and 

 Ziphius, and of such well-known species of sharks as Carcharodon 

 megalodon and Oxyrhina hastalis, which range from the lowest to tlie 

 highest of the main Victorian murine series, is in favour of those beds 

 being not earlier than Miocene. It is true that both species have 

 been recorded from the Eocene of the United States ; but these 

 American Atlantic deposits are not an altogether satisfactory basis for 

 correlation ; and these species make their first appearance in the 

 standard Kainozoic succession of Europe in the Miocene, and they 

 last on to the Pliocene. 



The classification adopted recently by Mr. Chapman seems to me in 

 essential agreement with the evidence of the Echinoids, Brj'ozoa, and 

 Vertebrates, most of the marine Kainozoic beds of Southern Australia 

 belonging to the Janjukian and being of Miocene age. 



(3) Discussion on the Age and Sequence of the Victorian 

 Tertiaries. By T. S. Hall, M.A., D.Sc. 



THE chief difficulty that meets one in attempting to decide the age 

 of the marine Tertiaries of Southern Australia is their wealth in 

 well-preserved fossils. From the oldest series, the Barwonian, which 

 includes the closely allied Janjukian and Balcombian, about 1,800 

 species have been described. This includes over 800 MoUusca, some 

 500 Polyzoa, and about 40 Brachiopoda, 50 Echinoids, 80 Corals, and 

 a large number of Foraminifera. The Kalimnan yields about 260 

 described species, mainly Mollusca, while the Werrikooian affords 

 close upon 200 species of described Mollusca. It may safely be said 

 that when the fauna of the Barwonian, at any rate, is fully described 

 the total will be doubled, for, taking the Mollusca, the small forms, 

 which are extremely abundant, liave not been touched, and a large 

 number of new species in almost all groups are known, but remain 

 undiagnosed. 



The basis of classification is in dispute. In spite of all objections 

 I adhere to the Lyellian percentage method as yielding the best 

 results. Another method has been adopted by Ortmann in dealing 

 with the Patagonian Tertiaries. It consists in comparing each species 

 with species of known age in the northern hemisphere, deciding 

 which is the nearest ' ally ' or ' representative ', and referring the 

 southern formations to those northern ones which yield the greatest 

 number of ' relationships'. It passes by us of no importance all the 

 southern forms. Harris suggests using phylogeny pari passu with 

 the Lyellian method. 



The objection urged against the Lyellian method is that the 

 personal equation enters too largely into it, and we do not know 

 what a species is. H. von Ihering has discussed Ortmann's method 

 fully, and objects to it. To my mind the personal equation is as 

 prominent in it as in the Lyellian, and it demands an amount of 



