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ON SOME FOSSIL CORALS FROM ALDINGA. 



By the Rev. J. E. Tenison-Woods, F.L.S., F.G.S., &c, Hon. 

 Memb. Adelaide Phil. Society. 



[Read September 17, 1878,] 



Some corals collected by Professor Tate have been sent to me for 

 examination, and though labouring under considerable disadvantages for 

 the task of their description I have accepted it with much pleasure ; not 

 only because these organisms possess more than an orSina>y interest for 

 me, but also because they form very good tests, perhaps better than any 

 others of the age and relations of the beds. From the beginning, the 

 corals of our Australian Tertiary formations have received more atten- 

 tion than aiiy other fossils from the same beds. There are few indeed 

 from Victoria or Tasmania that have not been described. There is, 

 therefore, a well-established ground to go upon. I have also recently 

 published in the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South 

 Wales for 1877 (vol. 2, p. 292) a list of the extra-tropical corals of Aus- 

 tralia. This enables us to compare any new tertiary corals, or the corals 

 of any new beds with the known fauna, so as at once to make very 

 reliable deductions ; and thus the relations are, in a manner, of either 

 fossils or formations immediately made known to us. The corals from 

 the Aldinga beds possess a more than usual importance. Very little has 

 been made known of the fossils, and that little excites our interest in a 

 high degree. Professor Tate has made known the existence in its strata 

 of fossil Belemnites and Salenia and the other organisms are sufficiertly 

 different from those of such well-known formations as Mount Gambier, 

 the Murray, and the Muddy Creek to make us wish for more infor- 

 mation. The examination of the corals now to be described 

 has not disappointed my anticipations. The forms are for the 

 most part new, and also for the most part so connected with what 



