184 



Tabic of Localities of Thylacoleo camifex, showing : — 



Where found. 



Breccia-cavern, Wellington Valley, New South Wales* . 

 Lake Colungulac, SO miles S.W. of Melbourne, Victoria f 



Hodgson's Creek. Darling Downs, (Queensland 



Kton Vale, Darling Downs, Queensland 



St. Jean Station, Darling Downs, Queensland 



Breccia-cavern, Wellington Valley J 



By whom. 



Sir Thomas Mitchell, C.B 



William Adcney, Esq 



Samuel Stutchbury, Esq 



Edward S. Hill, Esq 



M. Satche St. Jean 



Prof. Thomson and Gerard Krcfft, Esq 



Date. 



1836 

 1845 

 1853 

 1863 

 1865 

 1869 



* Appendix to Mitchell's 'Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia,' 8vo, vol. ii. 1838. 

 Upper and lower incisors of Tliylacoleo arc figured in Plate 32, figs. 4-10 (compare the restoration of fig. 6 with 

 fig. 6, Plate IX. of the present work) ; figs. 10, 11 give two views of the lower carnassial tooth. I did not feel 

 justified, in 1837, in proposing a generic name on those data. 



t This discovery of remains yielding satisfactory generic characters, which were then made known as of 

 Thijlacoleo, is noticed in Dr. Hobson's letter, quoted p. 110. In subsequent correspondence with the discoverer 

 I received the following observations on the mineralogical and geological characters of the locality : — 



" Chocolyn, Timboon, Victoria, Australia Felix, 

 16th August, 1855. 



" If you look at a map of Victoria you will perceive a Lake situated almost due west from the town of Geelong 

 named, probably, Lake Timboon. The true aboriginal name of this Lake is ' Golongoluc,' euphonized by the 

 Government Surveyors to Colungulac. My property is situated on the eastern bank, which in all the lakes 

 about here is the highest. The lake is salt, having no outlet, and is surrounded by banks of reddish clay covered 

 with light black soil rising on the eastern side to 30 or 40 feet with an undulatory surface. The margin of the 

 lake is indented here and there with capes of basaltic boulders, very hard and heavy, although exceedingly cel- 

 lular. Between the water-line and the cliff lies a narrow beach, and about the winter watermark in many places 

 may be seen fragments of a peculiar calcareous conglomerate, often much resembling coprolites. Where this is 

 seen, if you look above you at the clay-cliff, you will perceive a narrow white stripe, in some places only a few 

 feet from the surface. I believe the conglomerated and disjointed stratum on the beach to be this same stratum 

 brought down by the long-continued action of the waves and weather in ages bygone. Examining the conglo- 

 merate closely, you will find that almost every fragment contains more or less fossil bones, generally small broken 

 pieces, and by crawling along the cliff you will find a bone now and then protruding. On the beach in 1843, 

 when I first arrived, disjecta membra overspread many yards of surface, mostly belonging to the Kangaroo and 

 Wombat. The blacks called them old men's bones, and some said they were the remains of the Bunyip (a fabu- 

 lous animal said to live in many of these lakes). I have given away hundreds of these specimens ; but some that 

 I could not identify, having here no means of comparison, I preserved for those who I believed possessed sound 

 scientific knowledge. Among these were the specimens I sent to you through Dr. IIobson. I had long searched 

 during leisure hours for fossil teeth belonging to the large bones, and suddenly perceived those sent among the 

 broken conglomerate, and for a time they excited great curiosity. I have not till lately found any more teeth, 

 which made me regret the more the loss (as I feared) of those sent you. Some of these specimens of fossils are 

 finely petrified, others are not, but are enclosed in a hard calcareous matrix, the bone presenting a more recent 

 or rather chalk -like appearance. Of these latter I have some before me, which I will endeavour to send you 

 soon. Preferring to the former part of this letter, allow me to mention that the hard cellular boulders appear 

 to me to be the water- worn remains of submarine volcanoes, subsequent to the formation of which the whole 

 western district appears to have been raised and thickly inhabited by animals. Violent volcanic action has 

 again taken place, destroying these animals ; and still subsequent eruptions have broken up the crust in which 

 they were imbedded, covering them with volcanic mud and the country with fragments of broken lava. All 



