president's address. 595 



terrestrial or freshwater deposits in Australia by the aid of the 

 distribution of Lepidodendron australe alone. 



In Queensland land must have existed in Gympie time as the 

 drift specimens of Lepidodendron in the series of that age prove. 

 Contemporaneous volcanic eruptions took place producing l«asic 

 amygdaloids and tuffs. Cordaites australis, McCoy (?), is found 

 in association with Lepidodendron australe. It will be recollected 

 that both these forms occur in the Iguana Creek beds of Victoria, 

 which are probably on a somewhat lower horizon than the Avon 

 River sandstones, and they may possibly be on the same horizon 

 as the Gympie. It must be remembered, however, that there is 

 an enormous gap in Queensland between the Middle Devonian 

 and the Gympie, not one single species of the Middle Devonian 

 ascending into the Gympie Series ; and although there is also an 

 enormous gap in Victoria as indicated by the strong unconfornia- 

 bility between the Avon River sandstones (Carboniferous ?) and the 

 Tabberabbera shales (Middle Devonian), in the absence of marine 

 fossils from the Lepidodejidron Series of Victoria it is by no means 

 certain that the interval of time represented by the physical break, 

 the unconformability in Victoria, is greater than that indicated by 

 the biological break in Queensland. 



In the Star Series of Queensland, which succeeds the Gympie, 

 the strata are partl}^ marine, partly freshwater, and partly volcanic. 

 The earliest foraminiferal limestones known in Australia occur in 

 these beds, and abundant remains of Palceoniscid fish. Lepidoden- 

 dron australe, McCoy, L. veltheimiamtm, Catamites varians, 

 Germar, Cyclostigma australe, Feist., (?) Stigmaria sp. ind., Tenison- 

 Woods, and Cordaites australis, McCoy, form the chief con- 

 stituents of the flora. In Queensland, as in New South Wales, it 

 will be observed that L. australe appears to have preceded L. vel 

 theimianum, a fact already commented upon by Mr. Clunies Ross. 



The Rhyncliouella pleurodon occurring abundantly in the Star 

 beds suggests a relation between them and the Rhynchonella 

 pleurodon beds of the Clyde Mountain, near Braidwood, in New 

 South Wales, in the lower representatives of which Lepidodendron 

 australe is met with. 



