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



are shales 300 feet thick, with a few small fragmentary impressions 

 and pieces of leaves, and occasional fish remains. Mr. Jukes 

 believed that there was a perfect conformability in the whole series, 

 and a gradual transition of their divisions into each other. 



About the date of the letter of Mr. Clarke to the Annals of 

 Natural History he sent a paper to the Geological Society of 

 London * 



In this he took exception to the statement of Count Strzelecki 

 in his work that there was an entire absence of such plants as 

 Siyillaria, Catamites, Lepidodendron and Conifers in the Aus- 

 tralian coal beds. After some remarks on the similarity of our 

 coal beds to those of India he gives the following list of coal plants 

 stated to be found in the carboniferous deposits of New South 

 Wales : Pecopteris, Neuropteris, Odontopteris, Cyclopteris, Sphenop- 

 teris, Glossopteris. Genus, intermediate between Twniopteris 

 and Glossopteris, Halonia. Cannpeform plants : Catamites, 

 Phyllotheca, Zeugop>hyllites, Equisetum, Lycopodites. New genus 

 of plants with wedge formed stems : Lepidodendron, sometimes 

 Lepidostrobi, Ulodendron, Sigillaria, and Stigmaria, Goniferoz. He 

 then gives the localities where they are found, stating that 

 Lepidodendron occurred on the Paterson and that Catamites 

 abound not only at Newcastle but over the Hunter and Illawarra 

 coal regions. He concludes thus " We find also that there is a 

 gradual passage from a fauna usually supposed to belong to the 

 lowest Carboniferous beds of Europe to one still lower in the 

 geological scale in which in Europe no true coal beds have been 

 discovered. And if we adopt the view long ago presented to my 

 mind that the Australian system is the equivalent of the Devonian 

 or embraces that and the Carboniferous formation together, we 

 shall still be met with the fact that Silurian forms are mingled in 

 abundance with a flora supposed to be younger." From this Mr. 

 Clarke suggests that we cannot place our formations on a parallel 

 with any European epoch, but that what was the Silurian 



* On the Genera and Distribution of Plants in the Carboniferous system 

 of New South Wales. Proceedings June 16, 1848, vol. 4, p. 60. 



