Benson.—-Palaeozoic and Mesozoic Seas in Australasia. 33 
passing between the Канева таана СОВЕ ot an ancient continental 
mass stretching to the north-westwards from Australia—the Aequinoctia, 
which Abenadon (1919) believes broke up at this time—spread into the 
seas on the eastern margin of Australia, and there evolved during the 
closing part of the Carboniferous period into the provincial fauna which 
characterizes the region (compare Dun, 1914; David, 1919). 
ince the above was written access has been obtained to the summaries 
of the geology of the eastern and western portions of the Malay Archi- 
pelago by Brouwer (1919) and Van Es (1919) respectively. These are 
of such importance for Australasian geology that the following abstract of 
the portion dealing with the Permian rocks has been incorporated here. . 
sandstones containing fragments of crinoids, Spiriferina ?, Orthis?, a rhyn- 
chonellid, and Proetus, originally described by Martin (1911), and a large 
thickness of shales and limestones in the Snow and Hellwig Mountains, 
farther north. Crinoidal remains are found in Luang and Babar, and also 
in Lett, eres Molengraaff (1915) found that the series of fossiliferous 
pe sediments in the south of the island pass northwards into schists. 
fossils consist chiefly of brachiopods and crinoids, with Fusulinidae 
an ammonites such as Agathiceras (a : represented by A. micromphalum 
in both Western Australia and New South Wales). Broili’s (1915) account 
of the brachiopods indicates the presence of the following Himalayan 
forms: Productus cora, P. spiralis, Spirifera тү (= 5. musakheylensis), 
Reticularia lineata, Martinia nucula, апа Chonetes strophomenoides (all but 
the last two being also present in Western Australia), and Spirifera rajah, 
which is closely al ied to the characteristic eastern Australian form 
S. cedri 
or itself the littoral deposits are more richly а ag but 
detailed pof of the fauna are not here available. "There is a great 
wealth of mostly endemie echinoderms ыа by Wanner (1916), and 
of cephalopods (Haniel, 1915) ; the latter include, besides those mentioned 
above, Gastrioceras (which, wit : micromphalum, marks a definite zone 
in Western Australia), Waagenoceras, Popanoceras, Cyclolobus, Medlicottia, 
and other Himalayan genera, together with a large series of brachiopods 
described by Broili (1916), * which give less definite evidence of age 
(cf. Schuchert, 1906). Haniel (1915), on the basis of the ammonite fauna, 
has recognized four stages in these rocks. The lowest is coeval with the 
lower part of the Artinsk beds (Lower Permian), but contains some 
Carboniferous elements; the second is Up pper Artinsk-Sosio ; no analogy 
Productus limestone of Upper Permian age. Schubert (1915) considers 
the Fusulinidae indicative of an Upper Carboniferous age, but Van Es 
(1919) believes them to be Permian, to which period also Brouwer (1919) 
2—Trans. 
