316 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



always maintained that the rocks in question were divisible 

 into two great sections — one, the upper, characterised by the 

 presence of certain plant and a few fish remains, they con- 

 sidered to be of oolitic, or at any rate of secondary age ; the 

 other, the lower, containing a copious Palaeozoic fauna, was 

 admitted by them to be a part of the Upper Palaeozoic Series. 

 Indeed, so far as the actual presence of the old fauna in this por- 

 tion of the Australian sedimentary deposits is concerned, little 

 or no diversity of views has existed, but there has been merely 

 an expression of opinion as to the precise horizon to which tlie 

 fauna should be referred in the Upper Palaeozoic Series. 



The Kev. W. B. Clarke assigned to the fossils in question a 

 position analogous to the European, or perhaps more properly 

 speaking, the British Lower Carboniferous rocks. Professor 

 J. Morris, in a very able summary of the results of his exami- 

 nation of Count Strzelecki's Collection, said that, omitting 

 two localities, the deposits containing these fossils " probably 

 belong to that division of the Palaeozoic Series usually termed 

 Carboniferous." * 



Professor M'Coy's examination of the collection deposited in 

 the Woodwardian Museum led him to a similar conclusion, for 

 he remarks, " so that the age, even if tve only look to the generct 

 of the fossils, is clearly limited to the Carboniferous period." 

 An examination of the species led to a still more definite 

 opinion, for he states that they place the deposits yielding 

 them nearly on a parallel with the base of the Carboniferous 

 system in Ireland.*!- 



The summing up of this question by Professor J. D. Dana 

 is also one of much importance. After discussing the ques- 

 tion in an able manner, he assigns a Lower Carboniferous 

 age to the fossils lying immediately below the great coal 

 seams of New South Wales; or taking the whole series 

 (including the upper or debatable plant section) as one con- 

 tinuous and conformable series of beds, which he evidently 

 believed them to be, they are assigned to the " Upper Car- 

 boniferous, or partly the Lower Permian era." j 



* strzelecki's "Phy. Descriptions," p. 296. 



t Annals Nat. Hist., 1847, xx., pp. 310, 311. 



X Geology, U.S. Exploring Exped., Capt. Wilkes, p. 495. 



