354 
PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION C. 
age assigned to the Australian beds. In some of the other forms of 
life which are admittedly more widely distributed, such as the fish 
(sharks, &c.), we may gather a large amount of useful and interesting 
information, but this evidence should not be regarded as more 
overwhelming than that obtained from other more reliable sources. 
One remarkable feature of the mollusca is the fact that two or three 
of the commonest forms are identical with living species, and great 
stress has apparently been laid upon this by Sir E. McCoy for 
classification purposes.* It is probably partly due to this fact that 
erroneous ages have been attached to so many of our Tertiary beds, for 
in the earlier days when, so far as published accounts go, so few 
fossils were known, it would be very easy to lay more stress upon the 
relatively much greater abundance of two or three living species than 
is possible at present in view of the enormously greater number of 
extinct species now known. 
The polyzoa are exceedingly abundant at all the sections, and 
have been fully worked out by Dr. P. H. MacGillivray, of Bendigo, 
whose magnificent monograph on this group of our Tertiary fossils 
came before the Royal Society of Victoria at its December meeting, 
1894. This valuable work contains much new matter, and we shall not 
now have to wait long before it is published in a style worthy of the 
labour involved in its preparation. Some of our beds are very rich in 
ech modems, but these fossils are not restricted to one horizon, and 
therefore more care will have to be taken than has hitherto been done 
in soino eases in recordiug the exact locality from which the fossils 
were obtained, otherwise much needless confusion and difficulty will 
arise. Much has been written on these forms by Dr. Laube, Rev. 
.1. E. T. Woods, Mr. 11. Etheridge, Junr., Professor P. M. Duncan, 
Mr. J. W. Gregory, Mr. A. Bittner, and Professor R. Tate, and much 
has been said about the survival of Cretaceous genera and the 
occurrence of genera belonging to the Nummulitic of Europe and 
India, and of genera belonging to recent time, but no successful 
attempts have been made to classify our Tertiary beds upon these 
fossils. 
For our information about the corals we are indebted principally 
to Professor P. M. Duncan and the Rev. J. E. T. Woods. The former 
found them to be mostly extinct and peculiar species, and did not see 
his way clear to suggest any subdivision of the Tertiaries based upon 
this class. This is not to be wondered at when, upon examination of 
the localities from which he records his species, they all prove to be 
Eocene, and not in some cases Miocene atid in other cases Oligocene, 
as indicated to him by the Geological Survey of Victoria. On 
this point Professor Duncan statesf : “ The species of the different 
beds have so great a general and exact resemblance that they do not 
offer evidence of any great biological changes having occurred during 
the deposition of the whole of the fossiliferous Tertiary sediments. It 
is therefore not consonant with the rules of classificatory geology to 
subdivide the sediments into such a series as Oligocene, Lower, Middle, 
and Upper Miocene and Pliocene, which for the most part have very 
distinct faunas in the European area.*’ 
* Exhib. Essay, 1866, Kec. Zoo. and Pal. Vic., p. 17 ; also Prog. ltep. Geo. Surv. 
Vic., vol. viii., 181)4, p. 48. 
f Q. J.G.S., vol. xxvi., p. 284 ct seq. 
