TJic Specific Name of the Australian Aturia. 15 



Miocene. 1^ The American geologists, Osborne^ ^ and Cham- 

 .berlin, as well as Deperet,!^ advocate the position of the Aqui- 

 .tanian as Upper Oligocene. Mainly from the occurrence of the 

 Foraminifera, H. Douville and F. Sacco have in their numerous 

 papers before the Geological Society of France, regarded the 

 large discoidal Lcpidocyclinae as of Aquitanian age, and the 

 .smaller forms of Burdigalian. The genus itself they limit to 

 the Miocene, and therefore they regard Aquitanian as Lower 

 Miocene. Haug, in his studies of geosynclinals also supports 

 these views, regarding the northern Miocene period as one 

 diastrophic whole. We may still hold to the view, however, 

 that great crustal ifiovements did not commence synchronously 

 at the Antipodes. 



The sequence of the Lower Tertiary beds in Southern Aus- 

 tralia is very gradual, and the sedimentation in one area at least, 

 iis shown by the cores from the Sorrento Bore, was never 

 interrupted in that area, but was continuously marine. On 

 the other hand there is a marked unconformity between the 

 Janjukian and Kalimnan, which plainly demonstrates a con- 

 siderable time-break, and denoted usually by a nodule bed, 

 and we are perforced to mark its distinction from the Miocene 

 as a whole, although, as in Aturia, some species range through 

 to the basement Kalimnan. 



Referring to the suggestion that the Kalimnan series of Vic- 

 toria represents the Upper Miocene (Messinian or Pontian)^*^ 

 •of Europe, by an argument based on the occurrence of Scaldi- 

 cetiis, this idea is almost nullified by the fact that this cetacean 

 ■genus has been lately discovered anew^^ in the Balcombian beds 

 of Muddy Creek (Scaldicetus lodgei). Further than this, the 

 presence of the Miocene sharks' teeth in the Kalimnan is ac- 

 counted for by their occurrence in the basal bed which is often 

 Tcmanie in character. 



Summary of Argument. 



The writer finds no evidence to justify the identification of 

 Aturia atiiri, Basterot, with Aturia aiistralis, McCoy, and from 



10. See " Lf'Aquitanien en Aquitania," Bull. Soc. Geol. Fi-ance, ser. 4, 

 wol. xli., 1912, p. 472. 



11. The Age of Mammals, 1919, p. 224. 



12. Transformations of the Animal World. Inter. Sci. Ser., 1909, Table. 



13. Newton, Loc. cit., p. 166. 



14. Proc. Roy. Soc. Vict., Vol. xxx. (N.S.), pt. i., 1917, p. 34, pi. iv., fig-. 6. 



