ON THE SUCCESSION AND HOMOTAXIAL RELATIONSHIPS 
OF THE AUSTRALIAN CAINOZOIC SYSTEM. 
By Frederick Chapman , A.L.S., F.R.M.S., Paleontologist to the 
National Museum, Melbourne. 
« 
CONTENTS. 
Previous Opinions of Time Equivalents 
L’he Relative Values of the Percentage Method; and the Comparison of 
Typical Faunas, in determining the Ages of the Australian Cainozoic 
Strata . . . . . . . . , . , . . . jq 
Some Cosmopolitan and Widely-distributed Fossil Types and their 
Significance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 
On the Absence of Nummulites in the Cainozoics of Southern Australia . . 20 
The Evidence of the Complex-structured Foraminifera in the Australian 
Cainozoic System . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 
Stratigraphical Notes bearing on the Sequence of the Strata . . . . 26 
Table of Cainozoic Strata in Australia : . . . . . . . . 50 
Summary of Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 
Previous Opinions of Time Equivalents. 
In the earlier days of palaeontological work in Victoria, the 
conclusions as to the age of the rich Tertiary faunas of southern 
Australia* were necessarily founded on limited evidence, derived 
from an imperfectly-known series of fossils. The palaeontology of 
these beds had then been scarcely touched by systematic workers, 
so that the small number of species available for purposes of com- 
parison, both in relation to the question of local stratigraphical 
sequence and the wider one of correlating them with the well-studied 
Tertiary faunas of Europe, rendered a solution of the problem one 
of great difficulty. 
The first effort at correlation was made by Sir A. R. C. Selwyn in 
1854, who, in a “ Report on the Geology, Palaeontology, and 
Mineralogy of the Country situated between Melbourne, Western 
Port Bay, Cape Schanck, and Point Nepean, "f stated, “Both the 
clay and limestone ” [of the Mornington beds = Balcombian] ;: are 
very rich in fossil remains, and both in general lithological character, 
* By southern Australia it is intended to include the States of South Australia and Victoria, 
which have a community of facies in Tertiary stratigraphy. This explanation is necessary 
from the fact that localities in Victoria have often been erroneously referred by European 
palaeontologists to South Australia. 
•f Pari. Papers, 1854-55, vol. i. 
