RELATIONSHIPS OF THE AUSTRALIAN CAINOZOIC SYSTEM. 
follow Messrs. Tate and Dennant in the same general reference of the 
older Cainozoics to the Eocene, but consider the Janjukian beds 
( vide postea), in contradistinction to the last-named authors, to underlie 
the Balcombian clays. This difference of opinion as to sequence 
is mainly due to the occurrence of fossiliferons clays resting on the 
polyzoal rock at Belmont* * * § and Curlewis containing a fauna which 
was compared by Hall and Pritchard with the Balcombian clays 
of the Mornington and Muddy Creek type. The difficulty is easily 
explained by the fact that the species in these upper clays are 
unrestricted ; that is, they pass from the underlying Balcombian 
into the Janjukian, but are, to a great extent, absent from the 
intermediate polyzoal facies, purely on account of difference of 
hydrographical conditions . 
Until Drs. Hall and Pritchard instituted local names for those 
beds showing distinct faunal characters, f references to the various 
strata were very confusing, since no two authorities were actually 
agreed as to the use of the terms Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene and 
Pliocene when applied to the southern Australian Cainozoic. J The 
local names referred to are Balcombian, Janjucian (afterwards 
phonetically spelt Janjukian), Kalimnan, and Werrikooian. To these 
terms were afterwards added the comprehensive term tk Barwonian,” 
which includes both the Balcombian and Janjukian, as having some 
faunal characters in common, and distinguished from the Kalimnan, 
between which and the Balcombian there seemed, to the 
above authors, to be a greater palaeontological break. It is here 
postulated that the Janjukian is the younger series, and therefore 
nearer in faunal characters to the Kalimnan ; and, moreover, 
the palaeontological difference referred to is not so marked 
as those authors believed. This is borne out by an exhaustive 
study of the fossils of the Mallee borings, in which there occurs 
a gradual passage downwards from Kalimnan into Janjukian, 
without intercalation of beds containing restricted Balcombian 
fossils. 
In Drs. Hall and Pritchard’s important paper on “ A Suggested 
Nomenclature for the Marine Tertiary Deposits of Southern 
Australia, ”§ those authors give a convenient summary of the various 
opinions as to the sequence and age of our Cainozoic strata, together 
with their local terms for these beds, which has already proved to 
be of the greatest use in providing a definite terminology for the 
various outcrops. The use of local terms consequently prevents 
that confusion which previously occurred when each author ascribed 
* Mr. Mulder informs the writer that the shaft at Belmont, after passing through fossiliferous 
clays, finally reached polyzoal limestone. 
f Proc. R. Soe. Viet., vol. xiv., N.S., pt. II., 1902, pp. 75-81. 
+ For an excellent summary of authors’ opinions, see G. B. Pritchard’s paper, 1 On the 
Present State of our Knowledge of the Older Tertiaries of Southern Australia.” Rep. Austr. 
Assoc. Adv. Sci. Brisbane, 1895. 
§ Proc. Roy. Soc. Viet., vol. xiv., N.S., pt. 2, 1902, p. 81. 
