40 



NOTES RELATING TO CERTArN" FOSSIL LEAVES 

 AND FRUITS FOUND IN THE AURIFEROUS 

 DRIFTS OF OULGONO, NEW SOUTH WALES. 



By C. E. Barnard, M.D., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P., Eng., etc. 



[Bead 9th August, 1880.] 



The few specimens of Palaeontological Botany I am sending' 

 to the Museum of the Royal Society, Tasmania (kindly 

 forwarded by my father), are complementary to the fossil 

 seed-vessels or fruits presented by me to the Museum some 

 eighteen months back. They all were obtained from the 

 same " lead," or auriferous drift, in the immediate neighbour- 

 hood of Gulgong, at a depth of about 146 feet. This ancient 

 watercourse, called the " Black Lead," from containing dark 

 ligneous clay amongst its strata, has been worked for fully a, 

 mile in length, and was found very rich in gold. The 

 overlying strata consist of alluvial soil of a rich volcanic 

 €haracter — clay, gravel, and basalt. Of the latter, two 

 varieties are met with ; one, the hard, close-grained, bluish- 

 black stone ; the other, called by miners " soft basalt," from 

 its friable, earthy nature, and derived from the hard variety 

 by decomposition. 



Specimens of each are also sent with the fossils. 



Immediately beneath the basalt is a layer of dark bluish 

 clay, containing leaves and fruits arranged in distinct layers. 

 This clay overlies the " drift," or " washdirt," which contains 

 the gold, and varies in thickness from one to several feet, 

 and beneath the latter is another layer of clay, all containing 

 trunks of fossilised trees, branches and roots of these, 

 together with fruits, ferns, sedges, and the remains of animal 

 life. Such is a brief sketch of the locale whence these 

 specimens were obtained, and which had lain there for ages, 

 only to be unearthed by the ever active miner in his search 

 for the golden treasures buried therein. 



Though the S23ecimens sent are but fragmentary, yet they 

 will in a measure help to illustrate the character of the 

 vegetable world of this country, during a j^eriod generally 

 considered by geologists to belong to the Ui)per Pliocene 

 era. And, to show how extensive an area was covered by 

 these Pliocene forests, similar fossils to these are found in 

 several localities in this Colony, in Queensland, in Victoria, 

 and also Tasmania. Since the volcanic activity which closed 

 that period in this j^ortion of the continent but comparatively 

 little material alteration in this configuration has taken 



