380 PHYSICAL STEUCTURE AXD GEOLOCiY OF AUSTRALIA, 



ated — lower Oolite, Grordon Downs, containing Ammonites, 

 JPleurotomaria, Homomija, ]?liolodomija, Myacites, and Tancredia. 

 About 120 miles south of these beds we find strata o£ a similar 

 or liassic character in the following localities : — Fitzroy Downs, 

 Wollumbilla Creek, Mitchell Downs, the Amba Eiver, the Nive, 

 the Upper Maranoa, Mount Abundance, Blythesdale, and 

 Bungeeworgorai. 



A peculiarity in most of these fossils is" that they occur in 

 Tounded, nodular, or concretionary boulders imbedded in a brittle 

 marl in the creeks. This is also the case with outliers of the 

 ■Cretaceous rocks when they are found on the highest levels of 

 the watershed on the table-land. Thus, at the Palmer E-iver, in 

 North-east Australia, w^e find Cretaceous fossils in nodules of 

 blue clay, with septaria, in widely separated localities, but no 

 traces of the original beds. The explanation of this may be that 

 the Oolite and Cretaceous underlie all the interior and that these 

 are fragments of outlines broken up and denuded at the upheaval 

 -of the table land. 



The species identified with the European Upper and Middle 

 Lias from Western xlustralia are much fewer in number, but 

 t:his is partly owing to the fragmentary and imperfect character 

 •of the remains. Above these beds and horizontally stratified, 

 with but little disturbance, there is an immense area of the 

 interior of Australia covered with Cretaceous deposits and 

 characteristic Cretaceous fossils — Ammonites, BeJemnifcs, 

 Crioceras, Cj/prlna, Trir/onia, &c., with reptilian remains of 

 Jclithyosaiorus. The fossils have been but slightly examined, but 

 of their wide extent there can be no doubt — perhaps covering the 

 whole interior area of the Continent. 



The tertiary beds already referred to as covering so large a 

 portion of the south portion of the Continent are apparently 

 divisible into regular horizons similar to those of Europe. The 

 chronological sequence ascertainable by the proportion of exist- 



