800 CARBONIFEROUS AND SILURIAN FOSSILS FROM CENTRAL N.S.W., 



CARBONIFEROUS AND SILURIAN FOSSILS FROM 

 CENTRAL NEW SOUTH WALES. 



BY REV. J. MILNE CURRAN, F.G.S. 



The central district of New South Wales lying between the Lower 

 Bogan and Upper Darling, has not, up to the present, yielded any 

 organic remains. Palseontologically speaking, it is decidedly the 

 most barren area in the colony. No mention is made of fossils 

 from any of its rocks in De Koninck's Recherclies, or in the lists 

 published by Stutchbury, Strzelecki, and Clarke, or in the valuable 

 Reports of the Department of Mines. The latest geological maps 

 represent part of this country as " not geologically examined," 

 while the remainder is coloured as being occupied by granite, 

 Silurian or Devonian rocks. The Silurian and Devonian formations 

 are represented without doubt, but their identification has depended 

 entirely on general lithological or petrological resemblances. In 

 collecting materials to work out some points in the geology of this 

 little known part of the colony, I have discovered some interesting 

 fossils, which have been so far identified as to give a definite 

 position to the beds containing them. As it may be a long time 

 before I get an opportunity to make use of all the facts that have 

 come under my notice, I may be allowed to place on record the 

 discovery of the fossils named below. It will lend some importance 

 to these notes to remember that over the greater portion of this 

 part of New South Wales " accurate geology is simply impossible.' 1 

 There is no good topographical map in existence. The country is 

 in great part clothed with "Mallee" scrub, and pine forests. 

 Fossils are rare, and over long distances the bed rock is hidden by 

 superficial deposits. There are no running streams, and no ravines 

 to expose natural sections. I am fairly well acquainted with the 

 country between Bourke on the north, and the "divide" of the 



