THE 



Transactions 



OF 



The Royal Society of South Australia. 



Vol. XXXVIII. 



the occurrence of the genus cryptozoon in the 

 (?) Cambrian of Australia. 



By Walter Howchin, F.G.S., Lecturer in Geology and 

 Palaeontology, University of Adelaide. 



[Read April 2, 1914.] 

 Plates I. to V. 



A few months ago Mr. Charles Chewings, Ph.D., for- 

 warded to me from Central Australia a few specimens of a 

 fossiliferous limestone which he thought might be of interest. 

 The organic remains in the limestone being, for the most part, 

 less soluble than the matrix, had weathered into strong relief 

 and thereby exposed both the outline and structure of the 

 fossils in a way very favourable for observation. The very 

 striking resemblance which these forms bore to the obscure 

 fossil, long known to American geologists from the lower 

 Palaeozoic rocks as Cryptozoon, was at once apparent. 



Photographs were taken of several of the specimens and 

 forwarded to Dr. Charles Walcott, the Secretary of the Smith- 

 sonian Institution (who has an intimate knowledge of Cam- 

 brian palaeontology), for his opinion. Dr. Walcott confirmed 

 the determination that the objects belonged to the genus re- 

 ferred to, and passed the photographs on to Mr. Bassler, the 

 Curator of Palaeontology in the United States National 

 Museum. Mr. Bassler, in a communication which he kindly 

 favoured me with on the subject, says : "Your photographs 

 represent undoubtedly a new species distinguished from all 

 the other known forms by the fact that the 'heads' are separate 

 and column-like instead of confluent as in most of the other 



