ANCIENT SEDIMENTS. 319 



In Australia we have a record of the discovery of Coal 

 near Sydney (13). After passing through 2917 feet of the 

 beds appertaining to the Hawkesbury series (Triassic), the 



bore came to :— 



(Coal seam, 10 ft. 3 in. 



Permo-Carboniferous, L-, u 1 , , . \ 



- L lay, shale, and sandstone | f 



Newcastle series, • , ,? , , ■ 1 l n - 9 m - 



I, with Verteoraria. J 



This genus Vertebraria is well known in the Permo- 

 Carboniferous Damuda beds of India, with Glossopteris. 



Professor David (14) discusses the position of the 

 Australasian strata containing the Glossopteris flora about 

 which so much discussion has arisen. He notes that it is 

 the predominant plant, and is enormously abundant in the 

 Permo-Carboniferous Coal-Measures of Queensland, New 

 South Wales, and Tasmania. One doubtful locality ( Arowa, 

 N.S.W.) has been cited by M'Coy, where its age may be 

 Carboniferous, but no well-established case has come under 

 the author's notice where it has been found in Australia with 

 Lepidodendron or Rhacopteris. In three doubtful cases of 

 the occurrence of Glossopteris in association with Lower 

 Mesozoic plants, the supposed Glossopteris may be Sagenop- 

 teris. In Queensland there is undoubted Glossopteris at a 

 horizon which Jack considers Upper Cretaceous, but Norman- 

 Taylor believes it to be Permo-Carboniferous, and the 

 area where it occurs has not yet been mapped in detail. 



Turning to the New World we meet with a paper by 

 Professor Stevenson discussing a theoretical point. It is 

 known that the volatile combustible matter in the Penn- 

 sylvania Coal decreases towards the east. The author's 

 objections to hypotheses previously put forward to account 

 for the change are given. He maintains that as regards 

 its origin, the Anthracite of Pennsylvania does not differ 

 from the bituminous coal of the Appalachian basin, " but 

 because the great coal marsh from which sprang the many 

 beds originated in the north-eastern corner of the basin, 

 and extended thence on the advancing deltas formed by 

 streams descending from the Appalachian highlands, the 

 time during which the successive portions of the marsh 

 would be exposed would be less and less as the distance 

 from the north-east and northern border of the basin 



