314 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [ Feb. 9, 
lian coral fauna and that of the Tertiaries would give a much older 
geological age to them than is warranted by the physical geology of 
the area. During the deposition of the Tertiaries there was much 
disturbance in the currents and constant alterations in the depth of 
the coralliferous sea, whose bottom and shores were formed by the 
Silurians, old basalts, and carbonaceous sandstones of Victoria. The 
conglomerates and pebbly sandstones were of course formed during 
different marine conditions from those which existed during the 
deposition of the clays and clayey sands. As the depth increased 
during the subsidences which evidently followed every basaltic out- 
pouring, the calcareous element mingled with the wash down from 
the land, and finally it increased to such an extent that it encroached 
upon the area formerly occupied by littoral deposits, and even in 
some places covered the rocks whose denudation had produced the 
conglomerates. 
There were temporary upheavals during this general subsidence ; 
and the leaf-beds, with their associated clays, bear testimony to 
them. ‘The relations of leaf-beds, clays, gypsum, and basic sulphate 
of iron, so frequently observed in Europe, are repeated in the Aus- 
tralian deposits. The metamorphosis of some of the original con- 
tents of these vegetable-bearing clays into gypsum, and the gradual 
solution of the latter by the natural-drainage waters, may account 
for the irregular bedding of the Cape-Otway fossiliferous Tertiaries, 
contortion following the depression incident upon the gradual removal 
of the salt of ime. The tertiary deposits were not subjected to any 
other alterations in their relative level than those of the most local 
kind. There were none of the phenomena of uptilting and crumpling 
which occurred in the tertiary deposits of the West Indies, Southern 
Europe, and Sindh; and one fauna did not collect around the ruins 
of those which had been antecedent to it. 
It is reasonable to admit, especially when the long duration of 
the time which was occupied by the formation of the series over the 
fossiliferous deposits is considered, that whilst the vast central area 
of Australia was asea, there was open water to the north, with reefs 
in the Java district and corresponding formations opening into what 
is now the Mediterranean and the Sahara to the north-west. The 
Indian peninsula, and the area now occupied by the Himalayas and 
stretching far away to the east, were not part of a great continent ; 
and their marine tracts equalled the terrestrial in magnitude. The 
greater part of the American continent was submerged, and the 
Caribbean sea was a coral area. Where was the bulk of the land 
when the coral-sea stretched round the tropics? It could only have 
been to the extreme north and south. New Zealand and South 
Australia were therefore bounded to the north by a coral-sea, and 
to the south by the deep ocean, as now. So far as the coral-fauna is 
considered, this separation of the Australian sea from the European 
area by a coral tract inhabited by a distinct fauna, which could only 
exist under conditions very diverse from those witnessed in Victoria, 
is explanatory of the comparative isolation of the remote assemblages 
of species, supposing them to have existed during the same geolo- 
