192 Miscellaneous. damp luxuriant forests which even,-where clothe the plains and mountains of New Guinea." Baron von Mueller's remarks on some of the Papuan plants collected by M^-. Macleay are also evidence in favour of the former land-connexion of Xew Guinea with Australia ; so that our geolo-gical evidence is supported by that of zoology and botany. From geological data it is believed that this continent has not been submerged to any great extent since tlie Lower Pliocene period ; and we know that it has risen a little since the Upper Pliocene epoch, at least in Victoria ; for the lava-flows of that age, now forming the Werribee Plains, were submarine flows. And Mr. Daintree, formerly Government Geologist of Queensland, shows in his pamphlet ' On the Geology of Queensland ' that little upheaval of this portion of Australia has taken place since the volcanic out-bursts of a late Tertiary epoch. Xow, it is in the Upper Pliocene or Pleistocene deposits that are found the remains of the gigantic mar-supials Diprotodon, Macropus titan, Nototherinm, and others ; and as their allied representatives now occupy both Australia and New Guinea, it is not improbable that those gigantic animals whose bones are found in Xorthern Queensland also roamed in both those coun-tries. And, further, as the luxuriant vegetation and climatic condi-tions which we suppose to be favourable for the support of those immense marsupials still exist in Xew Guinea, is it rash to conjecture that some of these large creatures may be living there at the pre-sent time ? Further researches may prove this. I will conclude with the following very apposite extract from Wallace's ' Malay Archipelago ': — " From this outline of the subject, it will be evident how impor-tant an adjunct natural history is to geology, not only in inter-preting the fragments of extinct animals found in the earth's crust, but in determining past changes in the surface which have no geolo-gical record. It is certainly a wonderful and unexpected fact that an accurate knowledge of the distribution of birds and insects should enable us to map out lands and continents which disappeared beneath the ocean long before the earliest traditions of the human race. Wherever the geologist can explore the earth's surface, he can read much, of its past history and can determine approximately its latest movements above and below the sea-level ; but wherever oceans and seas now extend, he can do nothing but speculate on the verj-limited data afforded by the depth of the waters. Here the naturalist steps in, and enables him to fill up this great gap in the past history of the earth." — Sydney Morning Herald, March 8, 1876. On a mw kind of Psorospermia (Lithocystis Schneideri), parasitic in Echinocardium cordatum. By M. A. Giaed. If the test of an Echinomrdium be opened in an equatorial plane, we find almost constantly in the general cavity of that Echinoderm a parasitic production of singular appearance. This is met with
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