PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 585 



Hibernica of the Upper Devonian of Kilkenny, Ireland, and 

 SjjJieyiopteris igua7ie?isis, McCoy. 



At Tabberabbera Mr. Howitt describes* these Carboniferous 

 rocks as dipping at a low angle off the almost vertical strata of 

 the Middle Devonian rocks. At Snowy Bluff Mr. Murray 

 describes this series as being 2000 feet thick, with sheets of con- 

 temporaneous felsite near the base, and at least seven distinct 

 sheets of contemporaneous basalt in the middle and upper portion 

 associated with beds of red shale and red sandstone. 



The Avon River sandstones, which lie at the S.E. end of the 

 basin, contain Leindodendron (Bergeria) australe, considered by 

 McCoy to be Lower Carboniferous. Murray statesf : " I am 

 inclined to believe that the beds in which it is found are among 

 the uppermost of the group, arid younger than, though conformable 

 with, the Upper Devonian beds of Freestone and Iguana Creeks. 

 It is highly probable, therefore, that the Avon sandstones are — 

 as indicated by Professor McCoy on palseontological evidence — of 

 Lower Carboniferous Age, or passage beds in that direction 

 upwards from the Upper Devonian beds." In the section given 

 by Murray! a considerable thickness of Upper Devonian (Carbo 

 niferous. — T.W.E.D.) conglomerates, melaphyres, sandstones, and 

 red shales are shown to underlie the Leindodendron sandstones 

 of the Avon River. A thick red breccia conglomerate usually 

 marks the junction of this formation with the Upper Silurian 

 rocks. The prevalence of red material in this formation is due 

 probably to the oxidation of fine volcanic dust, resulting from the 

 eruptions which produced the contemporaneous basalts, such as 

 those at Snowy Bluff. 



The Victorian Carboniferous rocks strikingly resemble litho- 

 logically the Carboniferous rocks of New South Wales, as developed 

 in the Braidwood district near Major's Creek and at the Clyde 

 Mountain. Spirifera disjuncta has not yet been found in the 

 Victorian rocks. 



* Geological Progress Keport, No. iii. p. 214 onwards. By authority. 

 Melbourne. 



t Loc. cit. p. 67. 

 X Loc. cit. p. 68. 



