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



respect of New South Wales and Queensland are comparatively 

 inexhaustible. These mineral riches must surely lead in a re- 

 markable degree to great future commercial prosperity. 



List of Fossils. 

 Before commencing the diagnosis I should state something as 

 to the manner in which the coal fossils occur in the various beds. 

 As a rule, though plant impressions are abundant above and below 

 every coal seam, they are seldom perfect enough for determina- 

 tion. There is an exception to this in the case of Glossopteris 

 browniana. It is most abundant on the shale above all the coal 

 seams about Newcastle, and always beautifully preserved in black 

 coal impressions on a blue ground showing the net venation well. 

 There are also brown impressions on a buff-colored rock. In the 

 Ipswich coal seams (Queensland) the plants are often most 

 abundant in a black shale. It is in this manner Podozamites 

 distans, is often found, and Thinnfeldia. But the latter with 

 other ferns are found as yellow, red, or pale brown impressions on 

 a hard blue slaty rock. In this the venation is rarely well pre- 

 served. The red impressions are entirely formed of per-oxide of 

 iron easily falling into powder, in which nerve marks are never 

 preserved. This is common at Bosewood (Ipswich).* At the 

 same place there is a dull yellow very soft clay with numerous 

 black impressions of plants, well preserved but brittle. In the 

 Bundaberg coal seams the fossils are black shining imprints on a 

 hard blue shale. At Tivoli the plants are in a soft grey shale 

 with cuts like clay or breaks into fine powder. The Vertebraria 

 fossils in this are only impressions of the same colour with rarely 

 a little coal entangled in the marks ; the other fossils consist of 

 impressions of plants of a pale brown. At Darling Downs, near 

 Toowoomba, the fossils are all in limonite or ironstone concretions, 

 evidently derived from a volcanic rock. They are either leaf 



* I must put readers on their guard about this name. There are two 

 places called Rosewood in Queensland, and both distinguished by rich 

 plant beds. They are nearly 400 miles apart — one is a railway station 

 about 10 miles from Ipswich, the other on the railway 25 miles from 

 Kockhampton. 



