40 ON THE FOSSIL FLORA OF THE COAL DEPOSITS OF AUSTRALIA, 



Australia.* In this report many new species of ferns, &c, 

 are described and figured and their relations discussed at 

 length. The author's descriptions will be considered here- 

 after , he regarded the plants as of Oolitic age. He sum- 

 marizes his conclusions thus : " With such evidence as I have 

 mentioned, I do not think it improbable that a wide geological 

 interval occurred between the consolidation of the fossiliferous 

 beds which underlie the coal and the deposition of the coal 

 measures themselves ; that there is no real connection between 

 them, but that they belong to widely different geological systems, 

 the former referable to the base of the Carboniferous system, the 

 latter to the Oolite, and neither showing the slightest tendency to 

 a confusion of type."f 



From these conclusions, the Rev. Mr. Clarke dissented, and 

 maintained that there is no break whatever between the various 

 beds, but that the fossiliferous rocks are interpolated by the coal 

 beds containing the peculiar plants described. In a paper contri- 

 buted to the Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist, for Sept. 1848, J he 

 enters into proofs of the correctness of his opinion. These are — . 

 1. That Mr. Jukes, after an examination of the Illawarra coast 

 in 1845, then agreed with him that there was no break in the 

 series. 2. That Professor Dana, though differing from Mr. Jukes, 

 saw in the low cliff at Black Head in the midst of the organic 

 remains as described by M'Coy from that locality, the identical 

 fossilized wood described by Mr. Jukes. It was in and above the 

 coal. 3. At Moree (not far from Raymond Terrace), Mr. Clarke 

 found paleozoic fossils associated with, impressions of Glossopteris 

 lineata. 4. At Anvil Creek good coal is overlaid by a sandstone 

 containing Spirifers and other fossils described by M'Coy ; also at 

 Page River, Mount Wingen. 5. Stems and leaves of ferns occur 

 also in fosiliferous beds on the Allyn and various parts of the 

 Hunter River district. 6. At Parramatta casts of shells have 



* Annals Mag. Nat. Hist. Vol. xx, p. 145, &c. 

 f Annals and Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. 20, p. 311. 



X Remarks on the identity of the epoch of the coal beds and paleozoic 

 rocks of New South Wales, p. 209 of 2nd vol. for 1848. 



