151 
ItttgrrUanra. 
MASTODONTOID PACHYDERM OF AUSTRALIA. 
On tlie Discovery of the Remains of a Mastodontoid 
Pachyderm in Australia; by Professor Owen, F.R.S. 
[From a Letter to the Editors of the Annals of Natural History.] 
Gentlemen, 
I have lately received a letter, dated April 6, 1842, from 
Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell, Surveyor-General of Aus¬ 
tralia, in which he announces the interesting discovery of large 
fossil mammalian remains in that continent. The specimens 
from the bone-caves in Wellington Valley, described in the 
second volume of Sir Thomas’s work on Australia, were, it 
may be remembered, remains of extinct species of marsupial 
genera now existing in that continent, and of a genus very 
nearly allied to the existing ones; the largest fossil, which had 
been supposed to belong to a Hippopotamus or Dugong, in¬ 
dicating rather an extinct gigantic Phascolome; and there was 
not any conclusive evidence of a genus of placental mammal 
in that collection.* 
The fossils, which my friend has now transmitted, incon¬ 
testably establish the former existence of a huge proboscidian 
Pachyderm in the Australian continent, referable to either the 
genus Mastodon or Dinotlierium. These fossils consist of a 
portion of a molar tooth, and of the shaft of a femur with part 
of the spine of a scapula, and some smaller fragments of a long 
bone. Sir Thomas states, u These are not satisfactory speci¬ 
mens such as I hope soon to send you, but being the first 
from the locality, I am anxious you should first hear of them. 
I can tell you but little of the manner in which they occur; 
but such bones are found on the Darling Downs—those ex¬ 
tensive plains which you will see marked to the S.W. of 
Moreton Bay on most maps of this country. They are at the 
sources of the Darling River, and at a great height above the 
level of the sea, upwards of 4000 feet. I am informed that 
these huge bones, of which I send you but fragments, are 
found in some abundance/’ 
These fragments, when their broken surfaces were re¬ 
adjusted, composed the very considerable part of the right 
femur; the contour of the circumference illustrating the prin¬ 
cipal characteristic of the bone, viz. its being flattened from 
before backwards. 
Among the larger quadrupeds the femur presents a simi- 
* Mr. Pontlaiui informs me that a bone of a large quadruped, apparently 
a pachyderm, from the Wellington Valley, is, he believes, in the Museum 
at Paris. 
