PEOFESSOR OWEN ON THE FOSSIL MA]\IMALS OF AUSTRALIA. 569 



teristic Mammals which happened to surpass in bulk the still existing, swift-retreating, 

 saltatwial and nocturnal Kangaroos. 



It is true that reliable evidence has not reached us of the contemporaneity of Man 

 with Diprotodon in Australia. No human tooth or bone, no weapon fashioned by man, 

 has hitherto been detected in the breccia-caves, or has been picked up in the lacustrine 

 beds in South Australia, Queensland, and Melbourne, from which the largest and oldest 

 Diprotodonts have been exhumed, mostly under conditions of petrifaction, suggestive of 

 interment in those deposits during a vastly longer period than the Mammoths and Rhi- 

 noceroses have lain in our own brick-fields. 



A human skeleton, or part of it, picked out of the deposits forming the bed of a tribu- 

 tuary of the Condamine, and yielding the same results of chemical analysis as are re- 

 corded of a Diprotodont fossil at p. 572, would be one of the much needed decisive and 

 satisfactory evidences of the antiquity of Man. To promote the investigation in the 

 Australian Continent which the present phase of the ancient history of our own species 

 so much requires, I ventured some time ago to address the Legislature of New South 

 Wales, and with results, as respects the aid and encouragement of such researches, which 

 are given in the subjoined notes*. 



The range of JDiprotodon australis, during the period of its existence, in the Australian 

 Continent is shown by the evidence at present possessed to have been wide. 



* " London, British Museum, 

 23rd February, 1867. 



" SiE, — The enlarged and liberal views of your administration embolden me to suggest that a careful and 

 systematic exploration of the Limestone-caves of Wellington Valley, discovered by the Colonial Surveyor in or 

 about 1832, would be a work worthy of your encouragement. 



" The fossU remains which were then obtained from the caves revealed the important and suggestive fact that 

 the marsupial type of structure prevailed in the ancient and extinct as in the existing quadrupeds of Australia. 



" Besides the great accession of such evidences as would accrue to the Museum at Sydney from such explora- 

 tion, most instructive evidence may be expected bearing upon the antiquity and origin of the aboriginal races 

 of AustraUa. Such contribution to human knowledge, initiated and supported by New South Wales, would be 

 gratefully appreciated by all who in this hemisphere are devoted to the progress of science, and would redound 

 to the honour of your present constitutional Government. 



" I would willingly devote time to the determination and description of such specimens, or duplicates, as, so 

 acquired, might be transmitted to me for that purpose, or be liberally sent for deposition in the British Museum ; 

 and these descriptions would be punctually transmitted to the Museum at Sydney, as materials of its Catalogue, 

 or to such address as you might be pleased to indicate, in reference to a systematic description of the Wellington 

 Valley Bone-caves. 



" I feel confident, from personal conference on the subject with the late Sir Thomas Mitchell, who confided 

 to me the fossils he was able to bring over for description in his work published in 1838, that the results of the 

 proposed exploration, in the hands of one qualified, would amply repay a grant, say of £200 or £300, if placed 

 on the estimates and sanctioned by the Assembly. 



" I have, &c., 

 (Signed) " Richaed Owen, F.R.S." 



" The Hon. Henry Paekes, ifec, 



Colonial Secretary, New South Wales." 



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