18 



ON THE IDENTIFICATION OF THE FIEST 

 SECONDAEY FOSSIL FOUND IN AUSTEALIA. 



By E. Etheridge, Jun., F.O.S. 

 (Of the Department of G-eology, Britisli Museum.) 



[Bead 8tJi A^pril, 1879.] 



In a pa]3er entitled, " On the Carboniferous and other 

 G-eological Eelations of the Maranoa District in Queensland, 

 etc.,"* the late Eev. W. B. Clarke, F.E.S., wrote as follows: — 

 " On the return of the late Sir T. L. Mitchell from his survey 

 of the head of the Victoria, and on the subsequent return of 

 the late Mr. Kennedy, I had an opportunity of inspecting a 

 few of the specimens collected by them, consisting chiefly of 

 fossil wood. . . After the publication of Sir T. Mitchell's 

 report, I found that he had placed on one of his charts the 

 word " Belemnite,'' and as all his collections had been placed 

 in the British Museum, I wrote to the Very Eev. Dr. Buckland 

 to ask him to ascertain for me whether such a fossil had been 

 sent from Australia. The silence of my friend was accounted 

 for by his subsequent illness and death. I then renewed my 

 request to Professor Owen, but to this hour I have not heard 

 a syllable on the subject of the fossil in question, the geological 

 age of which I was anxious to determine, and which I thought 

 might have been an Orthoceratite." Had my lamented friend 

 Mr. Clarke but lived some few months longer it would have 

 been in my power to have afforded him the information he 

 required. 



The collection made by the late Sir T. L. Mitchell during 

 his expedition into the interior of Tropical Australia, was, as 

 he tells us in the Preface of his work giving an account of 



* Trans. E. Soc. Vict. I860, vi., p 33. 



