•526 
Correspondence — Prof. Ralph Tate. 
Pectens, Oysters, etc., of very recent appearance, in considerable 
nurabers. It is tliis group also which contains tbe slightly oil- 
bearing beds ; the rocks are extreraely disturbed, and are conjectured 
by Mr. Lyman to be of middle Tertiary age. 
The New Volcanic rocks include those surrounding or near all the 
numerous volcanic mountains of the island — pumice of light-brown 
colour with capillary pores, trachytic rock, etc. ; some of these 
volcanos still sending forth sulphurous smoke, and one having 
been in eruption as late as 1874. 
The Old Alluvium consists of materials brought down by ancient 
rivers, just as the New Alluvium does of tliat now being deposited by 
the present streams. Overlying the latter are extensive marslies 
and some peat. 
Among the minerals of less importance than those previously 
mentioned, the gold-fields of the island are, perhaps, only worth 
noticing, to say that, after close examination, the industrial prospects 
connected with them are unpromising, 180,000 dollars worth being 
barely workable. 
The Survey is conducted under the Orders of the Colonization 
Board, or Kaitakushi, whose multifarious supervision seems to in- 
clude the making of roads, railways, bridges, building of schools, 
ownership of all the horses in the island, introduction of cattle, 
grain, and other plants from abroad, as well as fruit trees, the produce of 
hundreds of thousands, which will, Mr. Lyman observes, bring the 
good fame of the Kaitakushi most agreeably into everybody’s mouth. 
Although these reports leave the impression that there is a good 
deal still to be done in the way of elucidating the geology of Yesso, 
they contain a fund of interesting information, which warrants the 
wish of still further success to the Geological Survey of Japan. — W. 
COEEESPOITDEUCE. 
OSTRACODA AND FORAMINIFERA IN THE MIOCENE OF SOUTH 
AUSTRALIA. 1 
Sir, — In the Geological Magazine for July, 1876, Mr. Robert 
Etheridge, jun., has furnished a list of Foraminifera and Ostracoda 
derived from the matrix of mollusca obtained from the Government 
Well sunk on the Murray Fiats, between the Burra and the North- 
west Bend, South Australia, and I w r ish to correct errors that he has 
fallen into in assigning the beds yielding the fossils to the post- 
Tertiary, and in remarking that the River Murray Fiats must be 
eomposed of strata, geologically speaking, of no great antiquity. 
The River Murray Plain is constituted of Miocene strata (contem- 
poraneous with the fossiliferous beds of Tertiary age in the Southern 
and Avestern parts of Victoria, with which your correspondent is so 
familiär). These Miocene beds are bounded on the west by the 
1 Tliis letter has been by an oversight accidentally held over. — Edit. Geol. Mag. 
