345 
could spread in vast numbers over the opposite hemisphere.” 
“ Questions like these have yet to be answered before we 
can determine whether or no strict synchronism (or homo- 
taxial relation for that matter) can be deduced from the fact 
of the fossils in opposite hemispheres being representative of, 
or even, if it turns out so, identical with each other. At all 
events, we must not trust too implicitly to single or isolated 
facts. We must get the series of formations in each case and 
compare them with each other, and endeavour to trace out 
some common starting point of time before we shall be able 
to draw clear geological horizons, establish definite chrono- 
logical epochs common to the whole earth.” 
With these observations of so thoughtful a geologist 
as the late Mr. Jukes I am still in complete accord, not- 
withstanding the valuable contributions made to our 
knowledge since that time by the combined labours of men 
of such genius and skill as McCoy, De Koninck, Etting- 
shausen, Miieller, Feistmantel, Tenison-Woods, Tate, R. 
Etheridge, jun., and many more. 
It does not follow that because Glossopteris and other 
fossil genera of Mesozoic facies have been demonstrated (by 
W. B. Clark, Daintree, Feistmantel, and other authorites) to 
have their beginning in Australasia in the Paleozoic age, 
that these alone are to be regarded as having made their 
appearance in Australasian rocks anterior to their appearance 
in India and Europe. From evidences available there is a 
presumption that other typical genera may also have 
appeared in Australasian rocks anterior to the period, in 
which they or their congeners make their appearance 
in the rocks of countries widely separated from Australia ; 
and hence we cannot as yet confidently accept classifications 
recently proposed by some authors who divide with too much 
artificial precision many closely related formations in Austral- 
asia whose stratigraphic relationships are still too obscure or 
uncertain to warrant the finer subdivisions of the Paleontolo- 
gist. Paleontology divorced from facts of local Stratigraphy 
s unsatisfactory. Huxley forcibly observes (“‘ Lay Sermons,” 
p- 234) “There seems, then, no escape from the admission 
that neither Physical Geology nor Paleontology possesses any 
‘method by which the absolute synchronism of two strata can 
be demonstrated. All that Geology can prove is local order 
of succession.’ It cannot be overlooked also that the 
materials upon which the Paleontologist works are often de- 
ceptive and unsatisfactory. There is not the connection 
between essential parts of classification nor the means of 
frequent verification, as in the study of living plants and 
animals, which also has its difficulties, and hence it too 
frequently happens that a great number of the generic and 
