310 
PROFESSOE OWEN ON THE FOSSIL MA3LMALS OF AESTEALIA. 
“ Bona Yista, New Welboume, 25 January 1S46. 
“My dear Sir,— I send you, by Captain Burrell of the ‘Achilles,’ a box which 
contains some interesting fossil bones, from a lake eighty miles south-west of Melbo^e. 
They were discovered and kindly' forwarded to me by Mr. Mh Adexey, who has a sheep- 
station on the banks of the lake. I have since visited the lake, which is caUed by t e 
aborigines ‘ Colungoolac.’ It is very shallow, indeed almost diw in autumn, its muddy 
bottom being covered with a pretty thick deposit of common salt of excellent quah^-. 
This is the case in most of those in this part of Australia. The whole of this part ol the 
country is volcanic, and probably these salt lakes are the deeper parts of the ancient sea. 
There is one, however, called ‘ Parrumbat,’ which appears to be the crater of an extmct 
volcano. Its waters are from eighteen to twenty fathoms deep, mth abrupt and almost 
perpendicular escarpments, except at two points, which appear to have been the out et. 
to streams of lava. The sides are regularly stratified, and consist apparently of con- 
densed scorise. The strata are singularly undisturbed and perfectly parallel, except in 
those places where large globular pieces of compact lava have fallen, and here t len 
direction has been altered, as indicated in this rough diagram. ■ 
As these are some of the features of the country in which these ^ 
bones are found, I think, perhaps, it may not be uninteresting to mention them. . le 
fragment of skull and incisor I hope may be new to you. . , n 
“I sent you about a year ago a box of the Mount Macedon fossils, by Captain 
Fordyce of the brig ‘Athens.’ 
(Signed) “ Hexry Hobso . 
The ‘ skull’ consisted of the cranial part (Plates XI. XIII. and X^ . fig. I). Minil.u m 
size and in the development of the temporal ridges and fossffi to that of a Lion. lo 
‘ incisor’ was a large tooth with a trenchant or incisive crown, implanted, with a sma. 
tnbercnlar tooth, in a portion of the right superior maxUlary bone, mcliuhiig part ot 
the orbit and lacrymal bone (Plate XI. tig. l,p i, and tig. 2). r o . 
The latter specimen gave decisive confirmation ot the caniit oroiis chaiactei o 
fossil, the ‘ incisor’ tooth (p .) answering in shape and function to the great scctoii.i oi 
‘carnassial’ (Plate XV. fig. i, p and the tubercular tooth (fig. 1, m 0 to tno sma 
tubercular molai- (tig. 4, m ,) of the Lion*; being situated, as in that animal, on 
inner side of the back paid of the sectorial tooth. Fortunately the nasal process ot 
maxillary in the detached facial portion of the skull of the 2’/,y Wco htted a surface . 
the fore-part of the cranium in such a way as to demonstrate that d to' ™” 1"' , ° 
same skull, completing the lower half of the orbit (Plate XL fig. , o), o uc i 
upper half (o) remains in the cranial portion of the skull. 
* The real homologies of these teeth can only be determmed by of 
ing the order of development and change ot the dentition : t le b) m ms me on > 
general shape and function to y; I and m 1 in Fehs. 
