12 MR. FREDERICK CHAPMAN ON THE 



thrown out during the boring operations for brown coal. A heap o£ fossili- 

 ferous clay remained until lately at the head of the shaft, and a plentiful 

 harvest of both large and small fossils might have been secured by picking- 

 over the clay, or by washing and sifting. My first acquaintance with this rich 

 material was through a sample given me by Mr, E. 0. Thiele, who, in con- 

 junction with Mr. F. E. Grant, wrote a short paper on the deposit, giving a 

 list of the fossils, chiefly mollusca *. Since then I have visited the locality 

 several times, and collected and washed a considerable quantity of the clay, 

 thereby securing a fine collection of both Foraminifera and Ostracoda f. 



Microscopic Characters of the Washings. 



The residues of the clays yielding the Foraminifera treated of in this paper 

 have all the same general character. The majority of the particles point to 

 an organic origin, but there is also present a fair proportion of terrigenous 

 material, consisting mainly of quartz-grains, with an occasional felspar or other 

 mineral fragment. The finer quartz sand is angular, and the coarser grains 

 are usually well-rounded ; whilst here and there a wind-worn grain may be 

 easily detected on account of its highly polished surface. The deposit con- 

 taining the largest and most numerous quartz-grains is that from the Altona 

 Bay Coal-Shaft ; and one bed in the series passed through by boring is a 

 coarse quartz-grit. 



The organisms seen in these washings, and common to all the localities 

 unless otherwise stated, are the following : — 

 Foraminifera. Grenerally abundant. 



Sponges. Fragments of hexactinellid skeletal mesh ; 4-rayed and 

 slender, curved needle-shaped spicules, pointed at both ends ; calci- 

 sponge spicules (Plectroninia ffalli), 4-rayed. Found only at Altona 

 Bay Coal-Shaft and Balcombe's Bay. 

 GrORGONiD spicules, two kinds. 

 Leiytoclinum spicules ; stellate, calcareous. 

 EcHiNOiD spines ; belonging to Spatangoids and Echinids. 

 PoLYZOA. Numerous. 



Mollusca, including Styliola rangiana and Limacina tertiaria (Pteropods). 

 Ostracoda. Fairly common ; valves occasionally united. 

 Fish ; otoliths. Occasional. 



Some fragments of a species of Corallina were also found in the washings 

 from the Altona Bay Coal-Shaft. 



* " On the Fossil Contents of the Eocene Chxys of the Altona Bay Coal-Shaft." Proc. 

 Roy. Soc. Vict. n. s. vol. xiv. pt. 2, 1902, p. 145. 



t 1 have already done a portion of the work on this group, and hope to shortly publish 

 some results. 



