﻿526 Correspondence — Pj'of. Ralph Tate. 



Peclens, Oysters, etc., of very recent appearance, in considerable 

 numbers. It is this group also which contains the slightly oil- 

 bearing beds ; the rocks are extremely disturbed, and are conjectured 

 by Mr. Lyman to be of middle Tertiary age. 



The New Volcanic rocks include those surrounding or near all the 

 numerous volcanic mountains of the island — pumice of light-brown 

 colour with capillary pores, trachytic rock, etc. ; some of these 

 volcanos still sending forth sulphurous smoke, and one having 

 been in eruption as late as 1874. 



The Old Alluvium consists of materials brought down by ancient 

 rivers, just as the New Alluvium does of that now being deposited by 

 the present streams. Overlying the latter are extensive marshes 

 and some peat. 



Among the minerals of less importance than those previously 

 mentioned, the gold-fields of the island are, perhaps, only worth 

 noticing, to say that, after close examination, the industrial prospects 

 connected with them are unpromising, 180,000 dollars worth being 

 barely workable. 



The Survey is conducted under the orders of the Colonization 

 Board, or Kaitakushi, whose multifarious supervision seems to in- 

 clude the making of roads, railways, bridges, building of schools, 

 ownership of all the horses in the island, introduction of cattle, 

 grain, and other plants from abroad, as well as fruit trees, the produce of 

 hundreds of thousands, which will, Mr. Lyman observes, bring the 

 good fame of the Kaitakushi most agreeably into everybody's mouth. 



Although these reports leave the impression that there is a good 

 deal still to be done in the way of elucidating the geology of Yesso, 

 they contain a fund of interesting information, which warrants the 

 wish of still further success to the Geological Survey of Japan. — W. 



coi^iEaEsiPOJsriDiBnsroiK!. 



OSTEACODA AND FORAMINIFERA IN THE MIOCENE OF SOUTH 



AUSTRALIA. 1 



Sir, — In the Geological Magazine for July, 1876, Mr. Eobert 

 Etheridge, jun., has furnished a list of Foraminifera and Ostracoda 

 derived from the matrix of mollusca obtained from the Government 

 Well sunk on the Murray Flats, between the Burra and the Nortli- 

 West Bend, South Australia, and I wish to correct errors that he has 

 fallen into in assigning the beds yielding the fossils to the post- 

 Tertiary, and in remarking that the River Murray Flats must be 

 composed of strata, geologically speaking, of no great antiquity. 



The Eiver Murray Plain is constituted of Miocene strata (contem- 

 poraneous with the fossiliferous beds of Tertiary age in the southern 

 and western parts of Victoria, with which your correspondent is so 

 familiar). These Miocene beds are bounded on the west by the 



' This letter has been by an oversight accidentally held oyer. — Edit. Geol. Mag. 



