594 



Jack,* but his sketch section would lead one to infer that the 

 tliickness is probably between 500 and 1000 feet. 



In New Soutli Wales the strata which immediately underlie the 

 Lower Marine Series (Permo-Carboniferous) and overlie the Lepi- 

 dodendron veltheimianum beds may be homotaxial. In the Stroud 

 District they attain a thickness of over 5000 feet. They consist 

 of tuffaceous conglomerates, basic and felsitic tuffs, with some 

 contemporaneous lavas, purple shale, and cherty shales containing 

 abundant Rhaco2:>teris. 



Summary of Carhoniferous Period. — In the present state of our 

 knowledge we are unable to correlate accurately tlie Carboniferous 

 formations of Australia, nor is it probable that they admit of 

 accurate correlation, though they may be ranged in homotaxial 

 groups. For the first time in the geological record of Australia 

 terrestrial and freshwater formations play an important part. 

 The Gympie series represents sediments laid down in seas of 

 moderate depth for the most part, but in the New Engl >nd district 

 of New South Wales possibly the red jasperoid shales of the 

 Nundle and Bingara districts with the associated serpentines may 

 represent altered abysmal deposits, as has been suggested by 

 Captain Hutton for similar rocks in the Maitai Series of New 

 Zealand, unless the red claystone represents rock locally meta- 

 morphosed where in contact with the serpentines. The greatest 

 palseontological interest centres in Leindodendron austrcde and its 

 allies in the contemporaneous flora. That this plant had a con- 

 siderable vertical range is certain, for it has been found associated 

 with Upper Devonian or Carbonifero-Devonian fossils at Mt. 

 Larabie, in New South Wales ; it is found in the marine Gympie 

 series at Gympie, and at the Hodgkinson goldfield in Queensland, 

 and ranges through that series to the top of the Star series, and 

 throughout a considerable thickness of rocks at Bari-aba and 

 Goonoo Goonoo in New South Wales, which are probably newer 

 than the Gympie Series. It is therefore very difficult to correlate 



*Report on the Bowen River Coalfield, by R. L. Jack, Government 

 Geologist. By authority. Brisbane, 1879. p. 4, 



