iioiiN i;xri;i)iTi()X — nakkativi;. -i;) 



I''ur(uii;it(^ly the- i.-iiii ajipcar.s to t'a.ll in .siitliciciiL ([iia.ntity to alwayw scour out 

 this pool ill front of tlio I'ocky bai'rier. 



llcubuiy, wliiuc w(! spelled for a day, lies not far- from the northern limit of 

 th<' (heat Cretaceous Plain forming tlui Lower Ste))pes ovv.v which wc had been 

 truAelling. At Lake Kyre, close to our starting point, tiie land was actually belnw 

 the sea level, but here we wore one thousand feet above it and weie close to tlu^ 

 ancient Silurian or Ordoviciiin mountain ranges around tlie base of which, much 

 higher and more imposing then than they are now, must have washed the waves of 

 the old Cretaceous inland sea. 



The flat-topped Desert Sandstone hills which wi; had pa-ssc^d l)y during nur 

 journey iiad indicated the former level of th(! land, and though all was now dry 

 and sterile, the discovery of vast remains of Dij)rotodons and other extinct foi'ins 

 at Lake Callabonna, as well as the general physiographic f(^atures of the ri'gion, 

 have shown that between tiie far-oH' timi^ when the land lirst rose above the le\el 

 of the Cretaceous sea and the present time, tliere Mas an interval during which, 

 in contrast to its present state, the land was coveretl })artly with great fresh-water 

 lakes and i)artly with rich forest growth, capaljli^ of supporting an extensive fauna 

 such as could n(.)t possilily exist at the present time. 



It was in 183(3 that Mitchell, in his expedition to the Rivers Darling and 

 Murray, lirst discovered the Wellington Caves and found in them the remains of 

 a gigantic fossil marsupial, to which in 1838 (_)wcn gave the name of Diprotodon. 

 Since that time its remains have been found in many parts of the interior of 

 Queensland, New South Wales and South Austi'alia, and in the western parts of 

 Victoria, (occurring in formations now usually described as of Pliocene age. At 

 the same periotl lived numerous other and now extinct forms which were often, like 

 the Diprotodon, of large size when compai-ed with tiieii- living allies. Amongst these 

 may be^ mentioned Palorcliestcs azael^ the largest known member of the Kangaroo 

 family, the size of which may be inferred from the fact that its skull measured 

 sixteen inches in length, wdiile that (jf the largest living kangaroo {Macropm 

 gigantciis) measures not more than eight inclu'S. Creat though its size was, this 

 gigantic kangaroo, judging from the similarity between the bones of its hind legs 

 and those of existing kangaroos, jumped along in leaps and bounds nmch as its 

 living successors do. 



Macrapus titan and /)/. anak indicate I)y the names given to them by (_)wen 

 their size as compared with living species. Linking the huge Dijirotodon with the 

 Wombats was an animal to which thi.' name Nototherium has Ijcen 'dven, and 



