ON THE BILOELA LABYRINTHODONT 



(Second Notice.) 



By Professor W. J. Stephens, M.A., F.G.S. 



(Plate XIV.) 



In the former paper some general statements were made as to 

 the date of the Hawkesbury rocks, and the atmospheric or climatic 

 conditions under which they were deposited ; and it is possible 

 that the subject may not require reiteration of similar arguments. 

 Nevertheless, as a preliminary to a more extended examination 

 into the evidence for the identification of their homotaxis with 

 Indian, S. African, Northern Asiatic, European and American 

 rocks, which has been worked up by, among others, the geologists 

 of the Indian Survey, it may be well to recapitulate what we know 

 ourselves of the sequence in N. S. Wales. And I should venture 

 to say that it is out of the question here to argue as to the position 

 of the Upper Marine Beds. I shall assume them to be, as generally 

 admitted, Carboniferous, containing as they do fossils of the 

 following genera : — Zaphrentis, Palceaster, Productus, Spirifer 

 (7 sp.), Pterinea, Aphanaia, Aviculopecten, Conularia,Euomp)halusr 

 Murchisonia, Orthoceras. 



But the Newcastle coal series, in which no evidence is afforded 

 by marine fossils, the beds being entirely of land or fresh-water 

 origin, can hardly be said to have had its homotaxial position 

 ascertained with an equal degree of certainty. Driven to the 

 fossilised plants of this formation for such probable testimony as 

 they may yield, in the absence of the less ambiguous marine fauna, 

 we observe : — First : That Lepidodendron and other unmistakably 

 carboniferous types are absent. Secondly — That in the plant beds 



