liv. 



to the Australian as to the European Tertiaries, as merely 

 expressing the absolute proportion of locally recent to extinct 

 species in a given deposit. And it seems to me that so far as 

 the Australian deposits are concerned, no other meaning is 

 intended to be conveyed by the terms made, use of. 



That the Australian fossil fauna shows an increasing specific 

 relationship to the recent fauna, as we rise in the series of 

 Tertiary deposits, cannot be denied. In other words, our 

 continent has had its successive periods to which the terms 

 Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene may usefully be given, without 

 implying that these were synchronous . with those of the 

 European. 



To what period or periods of the Tertiary era should be 

 assigned the South Australian deposits ? I will not answer the 

 question direct, or without reference to the classification 

 employed by the geologists of Victoria. Of the several 

 localities, yielding Older Tertiary fossils, none perhaps has had 

 its organic remains so fully illustrated as Muddy Creek, near 

 Hamilton ; and apart from the published data for comparison, 

 I have collected a very large suite of fossils from the beds at 

 that place. If contemporaneity be proved by identity of 

 organic contents, then the Muddy Creek beds are the direct 

 equivalents of the Upper Murr avian series, as is shown by the 

 following summary of the results of a careful comparison 

 between the fossils from each. Nearly all the Muddy Creek 

 species described by McCoy and Woods are in my collection, 

 but the few desiderated forms are included in my enumera- 

 tions : — 



Classes represented. 



No. species in Upper 

 Murravian. 



No. species in Muddy No. species 

 Creek Beds. common. 



i 



Cephalopoda 



Gasteropoda 



Concliifera 



Palliobranchiata 



Echinodermata 



Corals 



3 



89 



34 



3 



2 



7 



1 



210 

 43 



7 



3 



24 



1 



64 



24 



2 



2 



6 



Total. 



138 



288 | 99 



The classes of Mammalia, Pisces, Crustacea, and Annelida 

 show each a few species in common, but the total numbers in 

 each in class are very small. Polyzoa are, however, repre- 

 sented by numerous species at both localities, but their 

 examination has not yet been attempted, though a cursory 

 glance impresses you with the belief of the complete identity 

 of the two collections. The large percentage of seventy-two 



