284 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [ Feb. 9, 
with Mr. Jeffreys as to the number of derivative species in the dif- 
ferent members of the Crag. The fauna, however, required further 
investigation. With regard to the objections of Mr. Wood, he had 
not on this occasion intended going into details as to the beds above 
the Chillesford clays ; his object had rather been to show that these 
latter extended over a large area, and contained in other places than 
Chillesford the same shells as those occurring there. He did not 
attach the same value to the presence of Tellina balthica as did Mr. 
Wood, it being a shell now living and found on the coast. He had 
not overlooked the importance of the mammalian remains; but, like 
Mr. Dawkins, he had felt the uncertainty which, in the case of the 
Crag, so often attached to their origin, and therefore had not much 
insisted on them. He thought the divisions of Miocene and Plio- 
cene were well known and generally accepted ; and though the di- 
vision was arbitrary, he thought the setting in of the Glacial period 
a good epoch at which to commence the Quaternary period. If we 
were to go back to some break in the forms of life, we might go back 
indefinitely. 
Frsrvary 9th, 1870. 
Alexander Murray, Esq., of the Geological Survey of Canada, 
St. John’s, Newfoundland, and Frederick William Rudler, Esq., 
Museum, Jermyn Street, S.W., were elected Fellows of the Society. 
The following communications were read :— 
1. On the Fossit Corats (Madreporaria) of the AUSTRALIAN TERTIARY 
Deposits. By P. Martin Duncan, M.B. London, F.R.S., See. 
Geol. Soc., Prof. of Geology in King’s College, London. 
(Plates XTX.—XXIT.) 
ConTENTS. 
I. Introduction. 
II. Notice of the general distribution of the Australian fossiliferous 
Tertiaries. 
III. List of the Species of Fossil Madreporaria. 
IV. Description of the Species. 
V. Remarks on the Species. 
VI. Localities. 
VII. The existing Coral fauna of the Australian and neighbouring seas. 
VIII. Table of Species and their distribution. 
TX. Conclusion. 
InTRODUCTION. 
Tux tertiary deposits of South-eastern Australia attracted the 
attention of those colonists who knew something about geology, 
very soon after the country was settled and examined. 
The singular resemblance of the white limestone, chert, and flinty 
layers of the deposit of the sea-shore, near the entrance of the river 
Murray, in the Mount-Gambier district, to the chalk of Great Bri- 
tain, soon struck many of the well-educated men who carried the 
spirit of natural-history inquiry into those wild settlements. Of 
