286 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



a cachalot has been discovered by Mr. Brown^ in the diluvium 

 of Essex. Many analogous localities were cited, from which 

 cetaceous remains had been obtained of the genera Balsena, 

 Balsenoptera, Physeter, Delphinus, Monodon, and Phoceena. 

 Order Marsupialia : In the eocene sand, underlying the 

 London clay, at Kyson, near Woodbridge, Sussex, a small 

 portion of jaw, with a spurious molar tooth was found. This 

 had been referred to the oppossum (Didelphys) ; but Prof. 

 Owen, to whom the specimen had been submitted, by Mr. 

 Lyell, considered that the evidence it afforded was insufficient 

 to establish the conclusion, although the resemblance was 

 sufficiently close, to render its accuracy probable. Additional 

 specimens were required to demonstrate the existence of a 

 Didelphys in British eocene formations as satisfactorily as 

 had been done by Cuvier, in regard to the small oppossum 

 from the contemporary strata in France. In conclusion. Prof. 

 Owen dwelt on the interesting correspondence between 

 other organic remains of the British oolite, and existing 

 forms now confined to the Australian continent and neigh- 

 bouring seas. There the Cestracion swims, which has given 

 the key to the nature of the palates'^ from the oolite now 

 known as teeth of congeneric gigantic forms of cartilagi- 

 nous fishes (Acrodus, Psammodus, &c.) Living Trigoniee 

 and Terebratulae abound in the Australian seas, and afford 

 food to the Cestracion, as their extinct analogues probably 

 did to the Acrodi, &c. Araucarise and cycadeous plants 

 flourish on the Australian continent where marsupial quad- 

 rupeds abound, and thus appear to complete a picture of an 

 ancient condition of the earth's surface, which has been 

 superseded in our hemisphere by other strata, and a higher 

 type of mammiferoas organization. The second and con- 

 cluding part of the Report on British Fossil MammaUa, 

 it was stated, would contain an account of the fossil her- 

 bivorous, or ungulate, species of mammalia, many of which 



