350 
LECTURES ON PALEONTOLOGY. 
bones have peculiarities associated with the very long hind 
legs; but the large fossil ones resembled more those of the 
wombat; whence Professor Owen inferred that the Dipro- 
toclon must have had the hind limbs more nearly equal in 
length to the fore limbs. Subsequent discoveries proved the 
truth of this inference. 
In 1847, a Mr. Turner brought from Darling Downs to 
Sydney, New South Wales, a large collection of fossil bones, 
chiefly obtained from King’s Creek, a tributary of the Con- 
damine River, Darling Downs. These downs are exten¬ 
sive and slightly undulating plains covered with herbage 
developed from a rich black soil containing concretions of 
carbonate of lime. Ranges of low hills, with sudden slopes 
and flat-topped cones formed of basaltic rock, resting on a 
felspathic or trachvtic base, accompany the shallow valleys, 
and bear an open forest formed of various species of rather 
stunted Eucalyptus. The plains are filled with an alluvium 
of great depth, wells of sixty feet deep having been sunk in 
it. The plains in w r hich the fossils have been found are those 
distinguished by the creeks called Hodgson’s, Campbell’s, 
Isaac’s, King’s, Oakey’s, &c. These creeks traverse the 
plains on the west side of the Condamine, into which they 
fall. The fossils are found in the beds of the creeks, par¬ 
ticularly in the mud of the dried-up waterholes, or among 
beds of trachytic pebbles, which are overlaid by layers of 
clay and loam with marly concretions, above which is the 
rich black surface-soil. 
Fossil bivalve and univalve shells are found associated with, 
and sometimes cemented to, the bones; but they are of the 
same species as those still existing in the present creeks and 
waterholes. 
The most extraordinary of the fossils brought from King’s 
Creek by Mr. Turner was an almost entire skull of the 
Diprotodon Australis. The length was three feet; the two 
great anterior tusks, whence the name “ Diprotodon,” pro¬ 
jected a few inches beyond that length. Behind these tusks 
were two smaller incisors in each premaxillary bone; but 
these six upper incisors were opposed, as in the kangaroo, by 
a single pair of large incisors in the lower jaw. 
The characters of this extraordinary cranium were de¬ 
scribed by Professor Owen, and illustrated by drawings of 
the natural size. A descending process of the zygomatic 
arch was pointed out as illustrating the affinities of the 
Liprotodoii with the Macropus or the kangaroos. 
With this skull had been found a large bladebone, two feet 
four inches long, a humerus, two feet two inches in length, 
