THE ANNALS 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY, 



[THIRD SERIES.] 

 No. 56. AUGUST 1862. 



VIII. — On the Age of the New South Wales Coal-Fields. 

 By the Rev. W. B. Clarke, M.A., F.G.S. &c. 



To the Editors of the Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 



Gentlemen, 



In the February Number of the ' Annals ^ (No. 50) you have 

 printed a communication from Professor M'Coy of Melbourne, 

 in which, under the head of the '^ Upper Palaeozoic '^ and " Meso- 

 zoic " Periods, he introduces some remarks reflecting upon the 

 differences of opinion existing between himself and me respecting 

 the position of the Coal-beds of New South Wales, and marking 

 by italics, not only in the text, but in the notes, certain expres- 

 sions which appear to me as unjust to himself as they are also 

 to me. 



When the paper, from which the portion is republished, first 

 came out, I replied in the postcript of a " Review of Recent Geo- 

 logical Discoveries in Australasia^^ (a copy of which I herewith 

 forward to you), read before the Philosophical Society of New 

 South Wales in November 1861, to the italicized passages in 

 Professor M'Coy's essay of which I complained ; and in the body 

 of my paper I made reference to the state of the question as to 

 the evidence obtained. You will, probably, be willing to do me 

 the justice of allowing the readers of Mr. M^Coy^s remarks to 

 know what may be said on the other side. But I hope you will 

 also allow me to add in this communication a brief reply to the 

 notes in pp. 142, 143, 144, which I had not seen till I read them 

 in your Journal. 



The existence of the differences of opinion between Mr. M'Coy 

 and some geologists at home, as well as here, is too well known 

 to make necessary any further recapitulation of them than may 

 be found in my publication above mentioned. 



Mr. M'Coy, in 1847, maintained that our New South Wales 

 Ann, ^ Mag. N, Hist, Ser. 3. Vol, x. 7 



