84 Hev. W. B. Clarke on the Age of 



since that, Mr. Salter has pointed out to me, in a letter, that 

 there are essential diflferences between this plant and ordinary 

 forms. 



Whether, therefore, we are all right or all wrong, the sono- 

 rous periods in which Professor M'Coy introduces his Gipps 

 Land Lepidodendron as the mate of the "only characteristic 

 Palaeozoic Carboniferous genus,^^ and "of the same species as 

 the only Palceozoic coal-plant ever collected in New South Wales," 

 " found by the lamented Leichhardt near the borders of Queens- 

 land," hundreds of miles from the beds containing the (as I be- 

 lieve) Mesozoic plants, weigh but little with those who know (as 

 Mr. M'Coy himself must know) that the actual position of the 

 Lepidodendra-heds is as much in the dark as the antiquity of the 

 Glossopteris-heds. 



These beds are not actually identical. And I have never said 

 they were^ ; but I have held the opinion that they are both 

 parts of a descending Carboniferous formation; and I know, 

 from actual observation, that if the Glossopteris-heAs lie imme- 

 diately over the Lower Carboniferous fauna in the Illawarra and 

 on the Hunter, so the Lepidodendron- and Syringodendron-heds 

 lie over the Palseozoic Carboniferous fauna of the Peel River, for 

 which Mr. Odernheimei*^s memoir in the ' Quarterly Journal of 

 the Geol. Soc.^ may be taken in evidence without consulting my 

 own Reports. At this moment, Mr. M^Coy does not know with 

 any precision what stratigraphical relationship exists between the 

 beds with Lepidodendra and those with Glossopteris ; nor does 

 he know J from observation or geological sections, how far they 

 are apart. A Lepidodendron has been reported to me from the 

 Glossopteris-heds of Newcastle by the inspector of coal-fields ; 

 and from the same locality a Palaozoic fish, named by Agassiz 

 and figured by Dana, was taken in a bed of shale filled with all 

 the distinguishing plants of Professor M^Coy^s Oolitic flora. 



The discovery of a Secondary formation in Queensland during 



* I have already affirmed the contrary. Neither in the list I gave of 

 supposed genera in 1847, and of which some are held not to be verified, 

 nor in the subsequent remarks upon it, is there any statement to show 

 that they all came from the same beds. On the contrary, the localities 

 mentioned are numerous and ranging over a very extensive area. It would 

 be uncandid in the highest degree not to admit that there may have been 

 misconceptions of genera in that list, made at a time when no reference 

 could be had to collections for comparison. But Lepidodendra are men- 

 tioned from localities where they have since been verified. The "Uloden- 

 dron from Pine Ridge, Wellington," also agrees in geological position with 

 Lepidodendra from numerous other locahties. There are hwijiiie members 

 out of the twenty that can justly be excluded. It must also be remem- 

 bered that at that time I was single-handed, without a fellow-worker, and 

 with no acknowledged palaeontologist to appeal to. Moreover, greater mis- 

 takes than any alluded to have been made by paleontologists of eminence. 



