Tertiary. 
97 
Tasmania were slowly accumulating beneath the sea. 
The waters of this Tertiary sea spread many miles to 
the north of the Murray liiver, and covered a large 
area of Victoria, its shore-line sweeping around to the 
east of the Great Australian Bight. 
The climate on the dry land must have varied 
considerably during a part of the period. We find in 
many parts of New South Wales fossil leaves of lower 
Tertiary age, and they tell us that the cinnamon was 
a rather common tree in early Tertiary times, while 
oak, beech, and laurel also flourished. In fact, the 
extinct flora that clothed our hills in the early Tertiary 
was not widely different from the flora of the same 
age in the Northern Hemisphere. It is not improbable, 
therefore, that the unique and peculiar flora that 
separates Australia from every other land to-day, has 
been characteristic of this country only since the 
later Tertiary. 
D 2 
