PREFACK 



Then follow three plates illustrative of the extinct fossil Wom- 

 bats from the gold cement of DunoUy, &c., which first enaliled me to 

 show that our gold drifts, like those of Russia, were of the age of 

 the mammaliferous crag of the English Pliocene Tertiary period. 



Then follow two plates of the singular Volutes, representing the 

 Volutilites of the Barton clay formation of Hampshire, which, 

 amongst others, enabled me to fix the place of the Tertiary forma- 

 tions, extending from the shores of Hobson's Bay to the Murray, 

 in that debatable etage newer than the Eocene Tertiary and older, 

 by Lyell's percentage test, than the Miocene, for which modern 

 geologists have proposed the new intermediate geological period, 

 the Oligocene. 



Then comes a plate of the Cycadeous Plants, not found in the 

 Palaeozoic coalfields, but so abundant in, and characteristic of, the 

 rich Oolitic or Mesozoic coalfields of India, China, Richmond in 

 Virginia, &c., as well as in the less rich coal seams of the same age 

 in the Great Oolite of Yorkshire and other parts of Europe, and 

 from which, amongst others, I ventured to class the known Austra- 

 lian coal deposits in the Mesozoic age. 



Next a plate is given illustrating one of the most highly charac- 

 teristic genera of fossil plants of the Palaeozoic Coal Formations, 

 never found in the Mesozoic deposits, and figured here from the 

 Avon sandstones in Gippsland, which I have accordingly identified 

 as Upper Palaeozoic or Carboniferous. 



And lastly, a plate illustrating two new species of Fossil Star- 

 fishes from the Upper Silurian rocks. 



The future Decades will continue the illustration of the fossil 

 collections made in the course of the Geological Survey of the 

 Colony, which has been now resumed under the care of the Secre- 

 tary for Mines, Mr. R. Brough Smyth, the permanent head of the 

 Mining Department. 



Fkederick McCoy. 

 25th May 1S74. 



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