146 



or less, is a light yellow-brown resin. Like the former, it 

 is brilliant on fracture face but dull externally. 



As to the question whether the lignite has grown where 

 it is now accumulated, considerable evidence of growth in situ 

 has been observed. 



Rootlets have been distinctly noted traversing the inter- 

 bedded lignitic clays. A small stump, about 8 in. across, 

 was got in these beds when excavating the original shaft on 

 Mineral Lease 1233, Hundred of Sherlock. Furthermore, 

 the arrangement of the components of the lignitic mass is 

 adverse to any suggestion of water transportation. For 

 example, the particles of resin are embedded at random, and 

 there is no evidence of water sorting as between the leaf 

 remains and the massive woody tissues. 



IV. Comparison between the Beds in South Australia 



AND Victoria. 



The Tertiary deposits of the old Murray Gulf appear to 

 extend continuously from the eastern limits of the Mount 

 Lofty Ranges across into the mallee of Victoria. The strata 

 at Moorlands represent depositions on the v/estern side of the 

 old gulf, and a study of the beds is of especial interest for 

 comparison with those on the Victorian side, which latter have 

 already been written upon in regard to the deep borings in 

 the mallee. (14) 



In the present collection of fossils by far the larger 

 number of marine shells show an aspect comparable to the 

 Aldingan fauna of Professor Tate, both as regards the Lower 

 (Miocene) series and the Upper (Lower Pliocene) beds. On 

 the Victorian side the same deposits, both lower and upper, 

 show the middle and upper part of the Hamiltonian facies,(i5) 

 as proved in the deep borings of the mallee. Thus, in the 

 latter locality there were no shells of Spondylivs arenicola, 

 Pecfen palmipes, and P. consohrinus, although others were 

 common to both localities. This dissimilarity in faunas, so 

 closely adjacent, would suggest a bar or rocky ridge separ- 

 ating the sea of that period. The curious deepening of the 

 bathymetrical sedimentary conditions, shown in the Tin- 

 tinara Bore, have been referred to as due to trough folding 



(14) Chapman, F. : Cainozoic Geology of the Mallee and 

 other Victorian Bores, Rec. Geol. Surv. Vict., vol. iii., pt. 4, 1916. 



(15) A regional word, here coined to express the combined 

 faunas of the lower and upper Muddy Creek beds with the inter- 

 calated limestone of the Grange Burn, ranging from the Bal- 

 combian to the Kalimnan. 



