DISCOVERY OF BONES OF GIGANTIC ANIMALS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9130, 11 August 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

DISCOVERY OF BONES OF GIGANTIC ANIMALS.

THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN IN AUS-

TRALIA.

Mr. C. S. Wilkinson, Government Geologist of New South Wales, has forwarded to the Minister for Mines a report for Mr. William Anderson, geological surveyor, relative to H most interesting deposit of bones found on the Myall Creek station, near Bingera. The fossils, which amount to about four tons in weight, form the largest collection yet obtained from any one deposit, in Australia. They include remains of extinct animals, some of gigantic size, of the Pleio-f-toccne period and will be of considerable interest in the elucidation of the past lite history of this continent. The collection arrived in Sydney a few days ago. The report says : — " The collection is very large, and includes many valuable specimens. The bones occurred at an average depth of about loft from the surface, near the top of a bed of greenish-tinged stiff, tenacious clay, with patches of loose sandy grit through it. This is overlaid by a black carbonaceous clay, in which a few isolated bones occur, and this is again overlaid by a considerable thickness of siiii greenish clay, on which the surface still rests. At one or two points this series of clay beds is seen to rest, upon the tertiary basalt which covers so wide an area of this part oi the country that the age of this deposit, is evidently post-tertiary. Ihe bones when first exposed to I lie air are very brittle, and great difficulty was experienced in getting them out of the stiff clay in an unbroken condition. The specimens are all more or less fragmentary, and consist chielly or long bones, vertebra-, and jaws with teeth, together with the smaller bones of the distal extremities of the limits, although one large fragment of a pelvis girdle (the acetabulum of which measures (iin in its antero-posterior diameter), and fragments of large scapula l (one of which, although broken, measures Hit 7in in length) have been obtained. Some jaws are in a very perfect condition. The largest is a lower jaw of Diprotodon spec., and measures -ft Sin from the point of the tusk round the ankle of the jaw to the articulation of the upper jaw, while one molar tooth has a circumference of Sin above the alveolar border of the jaw. Of the large jaws there arc three forms possessing differently shaped incisors, which are so highly developed as to have a tusk-like form. Jaws of smaller animals, such as the kangaroo (macropus), wombat (phaseolomys), &e., are very numerous. Of the vertebra? specimens, those of the axis and atlas are tiie best preserved, many of them being entire and measuring Irom live to seven inches in transverse diameter. Large numbers of the vertebra' of small animals occur, and a few fragments of the jaws and isolated teeth of Thylaeoles carnifex (Owen), a large carnivorous mar.-upial. me: with but rarely. ' Birds' bones are not numerous. .As a rule the massive bones of the larger animals are broken, although a few perfect specimens have been obtained. .1 hose which have belonged to the smaller animals tire better preserved. Many of the fragments are slightly water'orn. and this fact, taken in conjunction with the mode of occurrence of the bones in the various beds of clay, would lead one to suppose that most of them had been carried from their original Testing place and deposited in their present position by the agency of running water. A large number of the fragments, particularly of the long bones, show evidence of having been gnawed by some carnivorous animal before having been deposited here. "But whether the teeth marks are those of Thylaeoles or not I am not yet. in a position to state with certainty. It is a curious fact that no portions of the skulls of any of these various animals, other than portions of the upper maxillary and palatal hones, have been observed in the deposit. This is no doubt, partly due to the fact that the crania would be less able to withstand transportation by running water than the other bones. From tiie cursory examination which I made of the bones in camp, there were no evidences of the presence of human arms or implements. The few measurements of bones I have given above •will serve to show what enormous animals the larger forms must have been which roamed over the continent at a time, geologically, re-cent, and only immediately anterior ro the present, human period, when the physical features of the country were little different from what, they are at the present day. Besides their pal.'eontological value, as linking together the terrestrial fauna- of tertiary and recent times, the investigation of such ossiferous deposits is of the greatest scientific importance and interest in its relation to the antiquity of man. in Australia, and to prove whether or not man was contemporaneous with these gigantic animals, and whether it is probable, as Professor Owen has suggested, that the extinction of the-e animals was largely due to the advent of man upon the continent.—l have, &c., William Anderson, Geological Surveyor."'