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a Rad Fre ee ee ae 
Natural History of Victoria. - ‘141 
marking the Upper Palseozoic period succeeding them similarly 
at this fourth great step in the creative changes of the earth in 
Australia as at the antipodes. Thus amongst the palzonto- 
logically important class the Crustacea, the genera Phacops, 
Odontochile, Portlockia, Calymene, and Beyrichia, which abound 
in the Lower Paleozoic rocks of Victoria, as in Wales, are re- 
placed yh Phillipsia, Brachymetopus, and Bairdia—Crustacean 
genera characteristically distinguishing the Carboniferous rocks 
in England and Russia from the earlier Lower Paleozoic beds ; 
again, amongst the Brachiopodous Mollusca, numerous species 
of the genus Producta characteristically separate at a glance the 
Carbeniferous formations of Europe and America from the Lower 
Paleozoic rocks; and exactly the same geological date marks 
the appearance of the same genus in the rocks of Victoria. 
Then, again, in the vegetable kingdom, the Carboniferous Upper 
Paleozoic period is strikingly distinguished from the Lower Pa- 
lxozoie deposits by the various sections of the great genus Lepi- 
_dodendron and its related forms. I rejoice to be able to announce 
that, in Victoria, this period is similarly marked by a large di- 
stinct species of one of the sections of Lepidodendron, which I 
identified in a block of sandstone collected (without other fos- 
sils) by Mr. M‘Millan, from the Avon ranges in Gipps Land. 
This fossil is of the same species as the only Paleozoic coal- 
plant ever collected in New South Wales, where it was found by 
the lamented Leichhardt near the borders of Queensland, on the 
Manilla river, fully two hundred miles north of the localities 
affording the plants associated with the coal of the Hunter, and 
other parts of New South Wales (which I believe to be Mesozoic), 
and by him given to the Rev. W. Clarke of Sydney, who sent it 
to me about twelve years ago for determination, during the 
controversy as to the age of the plant-beds of the Newcastle 
New South Wales beds, on which occasion I confidently pro- 
nounced, not only that it was a true Palzozoic coal-plant, but 
that it never came from the beds in dispute,—in which latter 
point I now find I was correct. To my friend Sir Charles Lyell, 
as well as to other geologists, I believe this identification of a 
true Palzozoic Carboniferous flora in Gipps Land will be of the 
highest interest, from the ingenious theory which they suggested 
to reconcile the difficulties arising from Prof. Morris and myself 
having indicated the strong connexion between the plant-beds 
associated with the coal of New South Wales and the Mesozoic 
coal-deposits of Europe, while we both agreed that the under- 
lying marine beds were clearly Lower Carboniferous (Paleozoic), 
and the Rev. Mr. Clarke, the local authority, insisted that they 
were all of one age. The theory was this:—that possibly, owing 
to the immense geographical distance between Australia and the 
