BY W. N. BENSON. 591 



All the material collected was submitted to Mr. Henry Deane, 

 F.L.S. He recognised fragments suggesting the Cinnamomum-type, 

 Sterculia, Flindersia, Clerodendron tomentosum, and Ficus scabra. 

 There are no leaves which can be referred to Eucalyptus. He 

 adds: "I do not think these fossil leaves can lead to any deduc- 

 tions as to age. They are quite of the same character as the Brush- 

 vegetation of our coast, a type which has existed in Eastern Aus- 

 tralia from the Miocene, if not from an earlier period. Of course, 

 the climate must have been a much moister one, owing partly to 

 the absence of a parched interior, enabling a luxuriant vegetation, 

 now restricted to patches of the coast, to spread over the tableland 

 and down the western slopes." 



Comparing the above facts of the mode of occurrence of the 

 gravels, their displacement by faulting, the abundance of leaves, 

 and the presence of seeds, as noted by Wilkinson, with the criteria 

 given by Andrews(32), it is evident that the Nundle leads must be 

 classed with the newer Series, and are consequently of Pliocene 

 age. 



(9). Tertiary Volcanic Rocks. 



{a) The basaltic series. — As stated above, these occur capping 

 the gravels that had been deposited in immature valleys. They 

 overflowed the brims of these valleys and flooded the low, rolling 

 country between them, which, however, was not completely plan- 

 ated, so that the resistant rocks still formed elevations that rose 

 some distance into the basalt, or remained as islands above the 

 lava-flood. We may note the irregularities produced by the resis- 

 tant spilite behind Mount Sheba, the serpentine-ridges by Hanging 

 Rock, and the inlier of Woolomin rocks at the head of Swamp 

 Creek. Apart from the irregularities, the general, slight discord- 

 ance between the boundary of the basalt and the contour-line on 

 the plateau, shows the mature character of the prebasaltic surface, 

 trenched, as it was, by immature valleys. This is evidence towards 

 the substantiation of the process of peneplanation, uplift, and 

 partial dissection claimed by Andrews to have taken place before 



