406 STEVENSON— INTERRELATIONS OF FOSSIL FUELS. 



fact and it can be removed only by revision of conceptions, which 

 have become laws, because accepted for a long time. But questions 

 of nomenclature and relations have only incidental importance in 

 connection with matters under consideration in this work. The 

 term Permo-Carboniferous will be employed here, as it has been 

 accepted by many students ; it renders unnecessary all discussion as 

 to propriety of regarding the Permian as more than a subordinate 

 division of the Carboniferous. 



Permo-Carboniferous Coals. 

 Australia. 



Queensland. — Jack and Etheridge^ include under the name Permo- 

 Carboniferous, the rocks between Devonian and Trias-Jura and 

 divide them into the Star, Gympic and Bowen formations. 



The Star and Gympic yield a flora of distinctly Carboniferous 

 type; the fauna is marine and certainly allied to that of the Lower 

 Carboniferous. The relations of these formations to each other 

 were not determined, as they occur in isolated areas ; they have 

 Calamites, Lepidodcndron, Cordaites and eleven genera of inverte- 

 brates in common, but a number of species are peculiar to the Star. 

 Lepidodendron abounds in sandstones and some shales. The 

 Gympic beds are much disturbed, those of the Star, very little. 



The Bowen, divided by Jack into Lower, Middle and Upper, had 

 not been found in contact with the Lower Carboniferous up to the 

 time when the report was prepared. Lycopodiaceous plants are 

 wanting, their place being taken, apparently, by the fern Glossop- 

 teris. The Lower Bowen has yielded no remains of animals and 

 it is capped by a series of bedded volcanic rocks ; the Middle is rich 

 in mostly marine mollusks and contains some remains of land plants ; 

 The Upper had abundance of land plants and one bed has marine 

 mollusks like those of the Middle. The Bowen is thought by Jack 

 to be equivalent to the upper portion of the New South Wales 

 Permo-Carboniferous. 



The Lower Bowen, consisting of grits, sandstones, conglomerates 



1 R. L. Jack and R. Etheridge, Jr., " The Geology and Palaeontology of 

 Queensland, etc.," Brisbane, 1892, pp. 3, 70, 135, 141, 147-159, 161-171. 



