266 GREAT SERPENTINE-BELT OF NEW SOUTH WALES, vi., 



Stones are almost vertical, have a peculiar dark green colour, 

 are splintery rather than fissile, and generally have the charac- 

 ters of the Carboniferous mudstones, which, though not easily 

 described, are readily recognisable throughout the Serpentine 

 Belt. Interstratified with them, are thin lenticular bands of 

 limestone, with abundant crinoid remains: and, adjacent to 

 these, the mudstone contains small cavities filled with ferrugi- 

 nous clay left by the solution of shells, crinoids, etc. A large 

 marine fauna was obtained here, which has been determined bv 

 Mr. Dun and listed previously (1, Pt. i., pp.505-507). Stonier, 

 who first noted this fossiliferous zone, reported the occurrence 

 in it of Lepidodendron ausf rale (21), but this has not been con- 

 firmed. .Similar marine fossils occur in Portion 144, one mile to 

 the south, and doubtless will be found all along the zone to the 

 north and south. 



Further west, conglomerates occur. The dips of the sandy 

 partings in the conglomerate, the shaley bands, and intercalated 

 mudstones show them to rest, with perfect conformity, on the 

 Burindi mudstones. Several types of rock occur as pebbles in 

 the conglomerate, granite, felspar and quartz-porphj^ries, aplite, 

 rhyolite, jaspets and quartzite, but, so far as has been collected, 

 none are of the type that occur in the Tamworth or Woolomin 

 Series. Suspicion arising about a black jasper and a red jasper- 

 oid rock has been dispelled on microscopic examination; nothing 

 like them has been found in the lower formations. The series 

 is of great thickness. They are portions of Rocky Creek con- 

 glomerates, the type-locality for which lies 40 miles north of 

 here. 



South of Burindi, the three formations continue. The matured 

 contours of the valley-floor are interrupted, near the junction of 

 Four Mile Creek with the main stream, by faults which bring 

 to the surface some of the harder tuflfaceous beds of the Barraba 

 Series. At the head of the Manilla River, the traverse along 

 the section-line (AB, Plate xx., fig.l) shows that the strata are 

 undulating. The conglomerates overlie mudstones of character- 

 istic Burindi appearance. (Want of time prevented a search 

 for fossils). Swampy alluvium fills the head of the valley, east 



