REVIEWS 
An Introduction to the Geology of New South Wales. By C. A. 
StssmitcH. Pp. 177+xii; figs. 79 and geological map. 
Sydney: W. A. Gullick, Government printer, 191. 
In 1909 E. F. Pittman brought out his Epitome of the Geology of New 
South Wales, which was welcomed by the geological world as giving in 
brief space an outline of the geologic history, so far as then known, of 
that interesting but far-away state. Now we are favored with a fuller 
and most excellent treatment of the geologic record in detail. 
The earliest geologic formations in New South Wales are of limited 
extent. The oldest fauna yet found is the pelagic Ordovician graptolite 
fauna which is very poor in other forms. But in the Silurian, which is 
perhaps the most extensive outcropping formation in New South Wales, 
there is found a great wealth of fossils indicating conditions favorable to 
life. The Silurian was terminated and the Devonian inaugurated by 
pronounced deformative earth movements. In the littoral fauna, 
brachiopods predominated while trilobites are absent. Their absence 
is not easily explained, for trilobites flourished in the Silurian and are 
found in considerable numbers in the Carboniferous, indicating that 
they had not become extinct. The Devonian was closed by one of the 
greatest mountain-making epochs in New South Wales. Since then no 
part of the state, excepting the northeastern section, has been subjected 
to similar orogenic movements. The present elevation of the strata 
above sea-leavel is due to vertical uplift only. 
A typical Permian formation, analogous to that of the Northern 
Hemisphere, does not occur in Australia, its place being taken by 
the so-called Permo-Carboniferous. This name has been applied in 
Australia to a thick series of marine and fresh-water beds which follow 
the Carboniferous as Siissmilch uses the term, and which in turn are 
overlain by fresh-water Triassic strata. An unconformity marks the 
division into Carboniferous and Permo-Carboniferous—a division which 
would seem to correspond approximately to the break between the 
Westphalian and Stephanian in Europe. Rather strangely, not a single 
member of the Carboniferous flora passed onward into the Permo- 
Carboniferous. The refrigeration of the climate which took place at 
772 
