Parr IV. Secr. iv. §2.] PLIOCENE. Set 
and is believed to be the equivalent, more or less fully, of the European 
Pliocene deposits. In the Carolina States beds of loam, clay, or sand, 
lying in hollows of the older Tertiary deposits, and containing from 40 
to 60 per cent. of living marine shells, are referred to this group. In 
the Upper Missouri region, the White River group is overlaid by other 
fresh-water beds, 300 to 400 feet thick (Loup River group of Meek and 
- Hayden, or Niobrara group of Marsh), from which an interesting series 
of vertebrate remains has been obtained. Among these are those of an 
eagle, a crane, and a cormorant; a tiger, larger than that of India, an 
elephant, a mastodon, several rhinoceroses, the oldest known camels 
(Procamelus, Homocamelus), equine animals of the genera Protohippus, 
Pliohippus, Merychippus, and Equus, of which the last was as large as the 
living horse. The remarkably oriental character of this fauna is worthy 
of special notice. 
Australasia.—Though vast areas in this region are covered with 
strata which sometimes attain a depth of several hundred feet, containing 
both terrestrial and marine deposits, and which are referable to various 
parts of. Cainozoic time, no satisfactory correlation of the beds with 
Kuropean equivalents has yet been made, if, indeed, such a correlation is 
at all probable or possible. All that can at present be affirmed is that a 
succession among these beds can be traced with an increasing proportion 
of recent species in the younger parts of the series. Throughout the 
whole of eastern Australia, including New South Wales and Queensland, 
no marine Tertiary fossils have been discovered. In the first-named colony, 
as well as in Victoria, beds occur containing terrestrial vegetation which 
has been referred to a late Tertiary age, as it consists of plants allied to 
those of the present forest-belt of Eastern Australia. The plant beds are 
often associated with auriferous gravels, and in some places have been 
buried under thick sheets of basalt. In South Australia and Victoria 
extensive marine accumulations occur referable to parts of the Tertiary 
periods. These consist of clays, sands, and limestones, often underlying 
wide-spread basalt-plateaux. They have yielded numerous foraminifera, 
especially at Mount Gambier and Murray Flats in South Australia: 
40 species of corals, which are only slightly related to the living species 
of the surrounding seas, but include three European Tertiary species ; * 
numerous echinoderms and polyzoa, and a large molluscan fauna, in which 
the genera Waldheimia, Cuculleea, Pectunculus, Trigonia, Cyprea, Fusus, 
 Haliotis, Murex, Mitra, Trivia, Turritella, Voluta, &c., occur. The verte- 
_ brate organisms consist of fishes (of the world-wide genera Carcharodon, 
Lamna, Otodus, Oxyrhina), a few marsupials (Bettongia, Nototherium, 
Phascolomys, Sarcophilus), with some marine mammalia (Squalodon, Arcio- 
cephalus). 3 ; 
In the South Island of New Zealand a mass of sandy and calcareous 
strata, termed the “Oamaru formation,” reaches an average thickness 
of from 1500 to 2000 feet, traceable to a height of 5000 feet in the 
Southern Alps. Out of 88 "species of mollusca Captain Hutton accounts 
12 (or 135 per cent.) to be still living. These strata are supposed 
by some to be on the same general parallel as the Eocene, by others on 
that of the Oligocene or Miocene series of Europe. There is evidence 
that volcanic action was going on contemporaneously with their deposi- 
1 Duncan, Q. J. Geol. Soc. 1870, p. 313. 
