PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 



571 



Three species of Recfiptacidites have been recorded from the 

 Upper Silurian rooks of New South Wales — R. austrcdis, Salter, 

 E. Clarkei, Salter, and R. Neptuni (1).* The doubtful occurrence 

 of a single specimen of a graptolite is mentioned by Mr. Clarke,! 

 and another specimen has been recorded by Mr. J. Mitchell, the 

 latter from Yass. 



Mr. R. Etheridge, Junr., considers the Yass rocks about homo- 

 taxial with the Wenlock Series of England. 



At Wellington what is probably the oldest remains of a verte- 

 brate yet found in Australia was discovered in the Cave limestone 

 of that district by my late colleague on the Geological Survey of 

 New South Wales, Mr. William Anderson. This appears to be a 

 spine of a genus allied to Onchus. It has Dot yet been described. 



Mr. Clarke mentions J a plate of Coccos^eiis resembling jMcCoy's 

 C. trigonaspis, and an Ichthyodorulite from the Murrumbidgee, 

 and Mr. J. A. Watt, M.A., a member of this Society, last year 

 discovered a fossil fish plate at Coodra Vale. The -exact horizon 

 of both these localities is not yet known. The horizon is probably 

 higher than that of Yass, and may prove to be Lower or Middle 

 Devonian. 



(3) In Queensland Mr. R. L. Jack has described § Pre-Devonian 

 schistose rocks at Charters Towers and in the valley of the Reid, 

 contemporaneous volcanic breccias occurring at the latter locality, 

 and on p. 23 he quotes the statement made by Mr. W. H. Rands, 

 F.G.S.,|| that the Pre-Devonian schists at the Cape River are from 

 five and a half to six miles in thickness. There is room, therefore, 

 in this vast thickness for Silurian and perhaps Cambrian or even 

 Archaean strata. 



No fossiliferous sedimentary rocks, however, have as yet been 

 found in Queensland older than Middle Devonian (Burdekin). 



* Remarks on the Sedimentary Formations of New South Wales, by the 

 Rev. W. B. Clarke, M,A., F.R.S., &c. Fourth edition. Sydney, 1878. 

 p. 16. 



+ Loc. cit. p. 12. 



X Loc. cit. pp. 17-18. 



§ Loc. cit. p. 19. 



il On the Cape River Goldfield. By authority. Brisbane, 1868. 



