EXTINCT WHALES AND WOMBATS 309 
marsupium, or pouch, have been found, and several distinct 
impressions of the skin of the fore foot were obtained. The 
locality is six hundred miles north of Adelaide, and, during the 
dry season, all the carting and travelling has to be done by 
camels, with a temperature of 111° Fahr. in the shade !— to say 
nothing of myriads of flies and frequent sandstorms. 
With regard to the geological formation of this salt-lake 
district of South Central Australia, Lake Mulligan is a vast 
level expanse of salt-encrusted, black mud, only becoming 
filled after very heavy rains (see Plate LIV.). It is about 
eight miles wide, and the bones are found somewhere about 
midway between the east and west edges. Usually the salt 
crust is not firm enough for bullock traffic, and it is probable 
that thousands of bullocks have at different times been bogged 
in crossing or attempting to cross. 
Several skeletons of a large wombat, about the size of a bullock, 
have been unearthed, probably Phascolomys gigas ; also another 
slender creature about the size of a sheep, which is as yet an 
unknown animal. The meaning of this great find of bones 
would appear to be that immense herds of Diprotodon and other 
creatures, in seeking for water in a dry season, got bogged, just 
as cattle do now in the North, by hundreds. Crocodiles and 
alligators inhabited the fresh- water lakes that once covered parts 
of the district, either in the Pliocene or Pleistocene period — or 
both. 
It now only remains to relate very briefly the progress 
made since the present writer published the above account 
in the year 1894. Palaeontologists have for years anxiously 
awaited the reconstruction of Diprotodon by Dr. E. C. Stirling, 
Mr. Zietz, and their colleagues of the South Australian Museum, 
at Adelaide. 
