1868.] FLO WEE THYLACOLEO. 307 



very dense, and rising with scarcely any noise, but very fast, up 

 the ahnost perpendicular face of the hill, which rises to the height 

 of 600 or 700 feet behind it. By a short circuit we got to the top 

 of this cliff and could look down into the lake, but we saw only 

 the windward half of it ; underneath us was solid-looking steam, 

 rising up to where we were standing. As seen from above, the 

 lake looks like the bottom of a large crater two or three miles 

 across, with high hills on three sides, but having the windward side 

 (tbe south-east) open. There was no appearance of any old craters 

 beside this ; but all the eastern side of the hill that forms the 

 northern boundary of the crater is full of little vents, Avhich some- 

 times can all be seen smoking, but commonly only a few small puffs 

 are visible from the sea. Three years since, flames were seen appa- 

 rently rising from the place ; and eight years since, the mountain 

 was very active : large quantities of ashes fell at Mota, ten miles to 

 windward, withering the leaves of some of the trees there. When 

 we stood by the lake, we felt a slight trembling of the earth, but 

 only when very near to it. 



April 8, 1868. 



"W. F. Webb, Esq., Newstead Abbey, Notts ; The Eev. H. W. 

 Crosskey, 10 Corunna Terrace, Glasgow ; G. H. West, Esq., B.A., 

 Christchurch, Oxford: T. Ainstie, Esq., B.A., C.E., Devizes; E. H. 

 Brunton, Esq., C.E., 84 George Street, Edinburgh ; and H. B. Wood- 

 ward, Esq., of the Geological Survey of England, were elected Eel- 

 lows of the Society. 



The following communications were read : — 



1. On the Affinities and probable Habits of the extinct Australian 

 Marsupial, Thylacoleo carnifex, Owen. By William Henry 

 Flower, E.R.C.S., F.G.S., E.E.S., &c., Conservator of the Museum 

 of the Koyal College of Surgeons. 



The late Br. Falconer, in a paper published in the Quarterly Jour- 

 nal of this Society for November 1862*, has given a masterly and 

 detailed statement of the arg-uments which led him to infer that 

 the small oolitic mammal, Plagiaulax, known only by its lower jaw, 

 was a phytophagous or mixed-feeding animal, having its nearest 

 allies among the recent Hyjjsiprymni^ or Eat-kangaroos. This 

 paper was written in consequence of Professor Owen having pub- 

 lished his conclusion, from precisely the same data, that Flagiaulax 

 was a '' carnivorous marsupial," its teeth being fitted to " pierce, 

 retain, and kill," and "cut and divide soft substances such as flesh." 

 As justly stated by Dr. Falconer, the interests involved in the 

 case are important. " Are the indications of palaeontology," he in- 

 quires, "more especially in its great stronghold in the mammalia — 

 the teeth and correlated organs — so unstable and so obscure that, 

 of two palaeontologists, the same dental and mandibular materials 

 shall lead the one to infer that the fossil form was a vegetable 

 * Quart. Journ. Gfeol. See. yoI. xviii. pp. 348-369. 



