president's address — SECTION c. 151 



Age — Carboniferous or Permo-Carboniferous — but all these opinions 

 are founded exclusively upon the presence of the form Glossopteris, 

 which is now known to range from Carboniferous to late Cretaceous. 

 The shales are coarse-grained and incoherent, and badly adapted for 

 the preservation of plant remains." 



Dr. Jack draws attention to the fact that the various beds in the 

 series are less coherent than is customary among the Carboniferous or 

 Permo-Carboniferous formations of Europe, Africa, and Australia, and 

 concludes : — " In a somewhat wide experience I have seen nothing 

 which the Collie Coal Measures — coal seams included — so much resemble 

 as the Oligocene Coal Measures of Croatia. While eagerly looking 

 forward to the production of further evidence, and open to conviction, 

 I am at present inclined to believe that the Collie coalfield will turn 

 out to be possibly of Cretaceous Age — newer than the coalfields of 

 Ipswich and Burrum " (of Queensland). 



The next, and perhaps most important, evidence bearing upon 

 the vexed question is contained in some " Notes on Fossils from the 

 Collie Coalfield, Western Australia," in the " Collection of the National 

 Museum, Melbourne," by Mr. F. Chapman, the Palaeontologist to the 

 Natiu:al History Museum, Melbom-ne, just about to be printed as one 

 of the bulletins of the geological survey of Western Australia. This 

 ^\Titer recognised the plants : — Glossopteris broivniana ; Glossopteris 

 hrowniana, var. indica ; Glossopteris hrowniana, var. communis ; 

 Glossopteris hrowniana, var. angustifolia ; Glossopteris hroioniana 

 gangamopteroides ; and, in the associated sandstones, the following 

 foraminifera : — Endothyra ; Valvulina plicata (U. Carb. Lst., England) ; 

 Bulimina (Permo-Carboniferous, N.S.W.) ; Truncatidina haidingeri 

 (Permo-Carboniferous, N.S.W.) ; Pulvinulina exigua. 



The Valvulina of Collie, though very much dwarfed, is essentially 

 a Carboniferous form, whilst the other species Mr. Chapman selected 

 and described point in a general way to the Palaeozoic Age of the 

 series. 



Mr. Howchin pointed out, in 1893, in his " Census of the Fossil 

 Foraminifera of Australia," that the Australian Palaeozoic forami- 

 nifera show a closer affinity with the Permian fauna of the Northern 

 Hemisphere than the Paheozoic. 



In view of all the evidence at present to be deduced from the plant 

 remains, and the marine organisms in the beds associated with the 

 Collie coal seams, despite the nature of the coal and the phvsical 

 characteristics of the basin, I am constrained to admit that a Permo- 

 Carboniferous Age of the series presents the strongest claims to ac- 

 ceptance. I make no excuse for the fact that my present views on 

 this much-debated question are not those 1 previously held, but our 

 most cherished opinions, like everything else, must yield to that stern 

 logician — fact. 



Jurassic rocks have been found up to the present in only one 

 district, that of Champion Bay, near Geraldton ; but the beds have not 

 been investigated in any detail by the Surve}^, hence our information 

 about them is, at the best, somewhat meagre. 



