10 MR. FREDERICK CHAPMAN ON THE 



Tertiary Foraminifera of Victoria, Australia. — The Balcombian Deposits o£ 

 Port Phillip : Part I. By Frederick Chapman, A.L.S., F.R.M.S., 

 Palaeontologist, National Museum, Melbourne. 



(Plates 1-4.) 



[Read Ttli February, 1907.] 



Introduction. 



Many o£ the clays and limestones of the Victorian Tertiary strata are so rich 

 in Foraminifera that they offer a wide field of research to the rhizopodist. 

 In the gigantic size and redundant growth of many of the species we see the 

 result of congenial life-conditions ; and in this respect the foraminifera! fauna 

 affords a parallel instance with that of the Tertiaries of the Sub-apennines, 

 the Oligocene and Miocene deposits of the West Indies, and the Miocene of 

 the Vienna Basin. 



The Tertiary foraminiferal rocks of Victoria have been by no means 

 neglected, for some valuable descriptive work on the Foraminifera of the 

 Muddy Creek beds has been already published by the Rev. Walter Howchin, 

 F.Gr.S., of Adelaide *, in which both the lower (Balcombian) and the upper 

 (Kalimnan) series are dealt with. The same author has also contributed a 

 paper on the Foraminifera obtained from the Kent Town Bore, Adelaide f, 

 which passed through somewhat similar Tertiary strata. A complete list of 

 the Tertiary Foraminifera of Muddy Creek (lower and upper beds), including 

 a species of Fahularia described by the late M. C. Schlumberger %, was given 

 by Mr. Howchin in his census of the fossil Foraminifera of Australia §. 



A note with lists of Foraminifera, Tertiary and recent, has also been 

 published by H. Watts ||, who has recorded 18 species of Foraminifera from 

 " Mt. Martha," which is equivalent to our locality of Balcombe's Bay. 



There is yet another paper dealing with the Foraminifera of the Port 

 Phillip area, by G. R. Vine, Jun.^ Mr. Vine recorded 67 species, and stated 

 that his first lot of material came from Mount Martha (i. e. Balcombe's Bay) ; 

 whilst a second supply, yielding smaller and more numerous Foraminifera, 

 came from a " similar deposit at Yarra Yarra, Victoria." Since there is no 

 locality of that name for Tertiary fossils, it may be assumed that " beyond the 



* Trans. R, Soc, S. Australia, vol. xii. 1889, pp. 1-20, pi. i. 



t Ibid. 1891, pp. 350-354, pi. xiii. figs. 11-13. 



X The comparatively sudden decease of this most successful and earnest worker in micro- 

 zoology is deplored by all students of Rhizopoda. 



§ Report Adelaide Meeting Austr. Assoc. Adv. Sci. (1893). 



II " Foraminifera o( Victoria." Southern Science Record, vol. iii. 1883, No. 3, p. 76. 



II "On some Miocene Foraminifera from Australia." Trans. & Ann. Rep. Sheffield Micro- 

 scopical Soc, Session 1897-98, pp. 6-9. 



