ON FOSSIL CHLLOSTOMATOUS BRYOZOA FROM AUSTRALIA. 



309 



24. On Fossil Chilostomatous Brtozoa from South-west Victoria, 

 Australia. By Arthur W. Waters, Esq., F.G.S. (Read 

 April 25, 1881.) 



[Plates XIV.-XVIII.] 



Part of the material forming the subject of the present communica- 

 tion I received in exchange from Miss E. C. Jelly, in a small test- 

 tube, already washed out of the clay; and on two subsequent 

 occasions she has kindly lent me a number of slides from her col- 

 lection. The " lump of clay " out of which they were washed was 

 sent over to England marked " Yarra-Tarra, Victoria," by Mr. John 

 Allen some years ago ; but the exact locality Miss Jelly has been 

 unable to obtain for me. However, I find that Mr. H. Watts, in a 

 paper " On fossil Polyzoa " (in the Trans. Roy. Soc' Vict. vi. 1865, 

 p. 82-84), mentions a deposit from which Mr. Allen sent fossils, and 

 says, " The deposit is described as being about thirty miles east of 

 Warrnamboul, extending along the sea-coast for a distance of from 

 six to seven miles, and is from thirty to forty feet in thickness." A 

 letter I wrote to Mr. Watts, on the possibility of its finding him, has 

 elicited no response ; and I therefore presume that he must be 

 dead or have removed, and fear that the exact locality will not now 

 be discovered. 



From the memoirs of the Geological surveys I conclude that it 

 will be found to be what the Australian geologists call Miocene, though 

 as yet this has not been shown to be of the age of the European 

 Miocene formation. Mr. Etheridge, Jun., writes that Allen pro- 

 spected in the " quartz cement which was considered by McCoy of 

 Pliocene age,'*' and says " the country traversed by Allen and party 

 also consisted, especially near the coast, of beds which were referred 

 by McCoy to the Miocene period." Mr. Etheridge, Jun., thinks pro- 

 bably the material marked Yarra-Yarra came from these beds, and 

 there is reason for supposing that the material was not quite 

 correctly labelled. The fossils which have been found in Muddy 

 Creek, Hamilton, Victoria, seem to support the Miocene age of the 

 beds; and similar Miocene clays, according to the Survey, occur in 

 several places, as near the mouth of the Aire river and also near 

 Geelong. 



Besides the Bryozoa, I found a large series of Foraminifera very 

 well preserved ; and I spent much time in picking out a large num- 

 ber, probably representing 50-100 species, which I forwarded to 

 Professor Karrer of Vienna, from whom I hear that he hopes to 

 complete the examination of the series this spring ; and I anticipate 

 that they will throw some light on the age of the formation, as 

 the Foraminifera, both fossil and recent, have had much more 

 attention than the Bryozoa. There were also a number of long slen- 

 der im-joints, which I submitted to one of our authorities without 



Q.J.G.S. No. 147. y 



