56 
The Australasian Scientific Magazine. 
[Sept i, 1885,. 
CURIOUS DISCOVERY OF BONES. 
BY 
RICHARD BENNETT. 
On the 9th of May, 1874, I had some men sinking a well on the Aringa 
station, six miles on the Portland side of Belfast, the property of Mr. John 
Ritchie. At a depth of about five feet from the surface the men came upon 
large boulders of basalt rock ; these continued to a depth of seventeen feet, 
and formed a bed so compact and solid that the men had to blast the 
whole way through with dynamite. At the bottom of this mass of rock, 
embedded in yellow clay mixed with ironstone, the whole of which bore 
traces of fire, the skeleton of what appeared to have been a kangaroo was 
discovered, but most of the bones were in such a decomposed state that 
they crumbled to pieces at the slightest touch. A few pieces only which 
retained sufficient solidity — including some molar, and one large incisor, 
teeth — the enamel on which was perfect, I forwarded, carefully packed in 
cotton wool in a small box, to Professor McCoy, at the Melbourne Museum, 
accompanied by a letter describing minutely the circumstances under which 
they were found, and giving a description of the geological features of the 
country in the immediate neighbourhood. My idea is that the animal 
must have been overwhelmed by lava in a liquid state, thrown out either 
by Mount Rouse or Mount Napier, or perhaps both of those volcanbls$, 
which are within thirty-five or forty miles, and from whose bases there is \ 
well defined ridge of basaltic rocks reaching to the sea coast, within two' 
miles of where these bones were found. From the immense thickness of 
some of the strata of basalt, some of them being twelve feet in depth, the 
volcanoes must have been active for a considerable time; then a period of 
some duration must have elapsed to allow a deposit of earth, clay, etc., to 
accumulate ; then another outburst from the craters, and a consequent 
fresh deposit of lava ; possibly forming a period of several thousand years 
since the bones were covered. If this hypothesis of mine is correct the 
kangaroo must have inhabited Australia, possibly from the commence- 
ment of the world’s history. The teeth found did not differ in size 
or shape from the kangaroo of the present day. One great peculiarity 
in the immediate neighbourhood is, that the principal waterholes are 
on the summit of high basaltic hills, formed of huge boulders, and 
the depressions containing the water have, in all probability, been 
formed by the lava cooling. Many of these hollows were formerly, 
I imagine, filled with peat, large tracts of which still exist on the low lying 
