BY AT. X. BENSOX^ W. S. DUX, AXD W. R. BROWXE. 371 



M'uted among- them and to study the beds in which they were found. This exam- 

 ination has proved to nie that twenty-two of these are common to the upper, 

 niiildle, and lower beds of the Carboniferous Limestone; thirty-six belong ex- 

 clusively to the upi^er beds; five or six to the upper or middle beds; and six or 

 seven to the lower beds. It must be observed that while the thirty-six species of 

 the upper beds contain a small number of characteristic species, .... 



the middle and lower beds furnish no decidedly characteristic species 



I believe then that 1 am right in concluding that the most of the Carboniferous 

 rocks of New South Wales belong to the upper beds, that a part . . . may 

 belong to the middle beds, and that, if the lower beds are represented at all, it is 

 only by some insignificant spots where fossils are rare." (30). Perhaps it was 

 because of the speedy recognition that these fossils came in part from what we 

 now term Permo-Carboniferous beds, this very important conclusion of De 

 Kouinck has been almost entirely overlooked. Vet if we confine attention to the 

 fossils as described by De Koninck, which come merely from the Carboniferous 

 localities shown in the list appended by Professor David to the oflfleial translation 

 of De Kouinck's Memoir, we find that there are sixty-one European forms recog- 

 nised by him. Setting aside from these sixteen, as being questionable identifica- 

 tions, and four the horizons of which are not specified, there remain forty-one 

 usable determinations, of which twenty-four are of brachiopods. We find that of 

 these forms, nine range throughout the Carboniferous Limestone, of v hich four 

 are more abundant in the upper beds, four are chiefly in the lower beds, one in 

 the middle beds ; five forms occur in both the middle and upper beds, and twenty- 

 two are almost wholly in the upper portion of the Carboniferous Limestone. On 

 De Koninck's showing, therefore, the Burindi fsuna is a very distinctly Visean 

 one. The difference between his conclusions and those now put forward is to be 

 explained by the increased knowledge that has l)een gained during the forty years 

 that have elapsed since De Koninck's work. It has thus been shown, for example, 

 that nine of the brachiopods considered by him typically of Upper Carboniferous 

 Limestone age. descend also into the middle portion, and that four of them (L. 

 analoga, C. laguessiana. C. papilionaaea, and 5'. cristata (octoplicata) are really 

 most characteristic of the lower portion of the Carboniferous Limestone. Pro- 

 bably similar adjustments would be required in other groups. 



It has been a pleasure to the writer to bear tribute to the excellence of the 

 pioneering work of the Rev. W. B. Clarke, whose footsteps he has now followed 

 from Crawney to Warialda ; he has an added gratification in bringing into clearer 

 liaht than before the remarkable residts of the investigations of the Rev. W. B. 

 Clarke's collections of Carboniferous fossils published over forty years ago by his 

 distinguished Belgian colleagTie, Professor L. G. De Koninck, of Liege. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY.' 



4. David. T. W. E., and Sussmilch, C. A. — Sequence, Glaciation and Correla- 

 tion of the Carboniferous Rocks of the Hunter River District, New 

 South Wales. -Tourn. Proc. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., liii., 1919 (1920), 

 pp. 246-338. 

 9. "Mitchell, T. L. — Three Expeditions into tie Interior of Eastern Australia. 



London, 1838. 

 30. DE Koxixc'K, I., (t. — Reeherches sur le-; fossiles paleozoiques des Nouvelle — - 

 Galles du sud (Australie). Mem. Soc. Roy. Sci. Liege, 3870-1877. 



