2 
The true Succession and the Relative Ages of the Rocks 
with the Fossils were discovered by William Smith (1769- 
1839). He was an English civil engineer, and he showed by 
his observations made on a journey through England and 
Wales that the rocks were superposed on one another 
according to their age, the oldest being found at the base of 
the series. Thus he was able to draw up a table of strata 
which showed this relationship of the beds. 
A Table of European Strata on these lines, only more 
complete, is hung on. the South Wall, near the staircase. 
A smaller table, showing the Victorian Strata, is hung 
in the Australian Gallery near the entrance to the Australian 
zoological collection. 
Fig. 1. Thylacoleo carnifex Owen. 
Lower right and upper left jaws. Pleistocene. Buchan Caves, Gippsland. 
(Original 7£ inches long.) 
In earlier historic times, whilst the beds of fossiliferous 
rocks and their distribution were being studied, the fossil 
contents received attention at the hands of the naturalists 
Blumenbach, Cuvier, Lamarck, and Brongniart. They 
compared these fossils with living forms, and found that they 
belonged to kinds no longer living. 
