10 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 



3. Ferruginous sandstone, which covers not only a vast extent 

 of country near the coast, but forms the plateau of the Blue 

 Mountains. This stratum, because of its superior position to 

 the foregoing, appertains to the Tertiary system. 



This arrangement is a great advance on prior contributions, as 

 it establishes a definite successional order of deposits ; and for the 

 first time, though this was foreshadowed by his countryman Bailly, 

 the superposition of the Sydney sandstone (No. 3) on the Coal 

 Measures (No. 2) and of these on the granites (No. 1) is recognised. 



Cunningham, P.*, traces the Coal Measures from Port 

 Stephens to Botany Bay and interiorly about 100 miles along the 

 Hunter River, and notes the occurrence of plant remains and 

 upright trunks of trees in the beds ; various rocks are named, and 

 the occurrence of limestone at Bathvirst (previously observed by 

 Oxley) is mentioned as being the nearest to Sydney. 



Up to this date no described fossil had been referred to as 

 occurring in Australian deposits, and it was not till 1828 that 

 Alex. Brongniart f described Glosnopteris Brmvniana and 

 Fhyllotheca Australis from the Newcastle Coal Measures. 



Scott, Rev. Archdeacon^, describes the coastal calciferous 

 sandstone about Swan River, and the Darling Range, as con- 

 sisting of greenstone and syenite, and to the southward of clay 

 slate. 



Cunningham, P.§, describes the leading lithological features of 

 the country about Liverpool Plains : he mentions a coralliferous 

 limestone, as well as other fos^siliferous strata, but makes no 

 attempt to make out the order of superposition or the equivalents 

 of the strata. 



SiurtII, during 1828-183 1, corrected Oxley by proving that the 

 superfluous waters of the western slope of the Blue Mountams were 

 di-ained by the River Murray, and thus achieved a most important 

 discovery. In 1829 he followed the Murrumbidgee to the Murray, 

 and thence to Lake Alexandrina. Cn his passage down the Murray 

 he arrived at Overland Corner, and noted there the sudden change 

 from cliffs of sand and clay to fossiliferous limestone, which con- 

 tinued uninterruptedly to Lake Alexandrina. Sturt referred 

 examples of the fossil moUusca, echinoids, and polyzoa to species 

 of the Eocene of England, Paris, and Westphalia, and thus estab- 

 lished by similaritj' of organic remains an old Tertiary formation 



* Two Years in New South Wales, 1S27, vol. ii., p;). 1-12. 



+ Hi^toil•e des Veg^taux Fossiles, 2 vols., 1828, I. p. 222. 



X Proc. Geol. Soc, vol. i., 1831, p. 32i). ?Proc. Geol. Soc, vol. i., 1831, pp.225-226. 



I, Two Expeditions into the Interior ol Southern Australia. 1833. 



