332 MinceUanea. 



of the older genuine coal-fields of Europe. In the inferioi strata 

 there are forty-eight species of animal remains noticed, one of 

 which is supposed to be identical with a species of the British 

 mountain limestone ; the remainder are all (except two new types) 

 of palaeozoic genera ; but the absence is remarked of Nautilus, the 

 true Leptance and Orthidce, all of which, however, I have now been 

 able to add. 



In the above notice I have given seventeen species of fossil 

 plants from the Mulubimba district, which is a portion of the great 

 Newcastle and Hawkesbury basin, twelve of which are considered 

 new. Those i^lants belong to ten genera, two of which {Verte- 

 braria and Zeugophi/llites) are only known here and in the supposed 

 oolitic coal-fields of India : one genus {Gleichenites) 1 have provi- 

 sionallj'' used for the Pecopteris odoiitopteroides of Morris, from 

 the verbal characters given by Goppert for that genus, the species 

 of which are found only in the palaeozoic coal ; the plant, however, 

 agrees much better with the species of the Keuper genus HeftU' 

 carpus than with those of the carboniferous Gleichenites, and if we 

 look rather to the plants themselves than to the definitions given 

 of the genera, I should certainly place it there : all the other genera 

 (with the exception of Phyllotheca, which is confined to the locality) 

 are well known in the oolitic coal deposits of Yorkshire ; and one 

 species, the Sphenopteris germana (M'Coy), is scarcely to be distin- 

 guished from the common Pecopteris Murrayana (Br.) of the Scar- 

 borough shales. Several of those genera are common both to the 

 carboniferous and oolitic periods, but the most abundant and 

 characteristic plants of the Australian beds belong to a genus 

 (Glossopteris) never found in the old coal fields, but several species 

 of which are, on the other hand, well known in coal-beds of the 

 oolitic age in various parts of the world. I am therefore strongly 

 of opinion, from the evidence of more than double the number of 

 species of plants known before, that the coal deposits of Australia 

 should be referred to the oolitic period ; and this opinion derives 

 much additional weight from the negative fact, that among the 

 large quantity of remains of plants which I have examined from 

 this district, not a trace has been observed of any of the charac- 

 teristic carboniferous genera — not a trace of Lepidodendron or any 

 allied plant — not a trace of Sigillaria, Favularia, Siigmaria, or 

 even of true Calamites. I might further add, that the list of plants 

 I have given destroys any negative arguments formerly based on 

 the fossil evidence, for considering the Jerusalem coal-basin to be 

 of a different age from the Newcastle one, as I have detected the 

 most characteristic plants of the former abundantly in the latter 

 beds, so that the fossil evidence now would go, with the admitted 

 identity of the walls of the basins and the general analogy of the 

 sections, to prove them all of one age. 



In the underlying rocks I have been able to determine 83 species 

 of animal remains, of which 14 are Zoophyta, 3 Grinoidea, 4 Crus- 

 tacea, 25 Brachiopoda, 24 Lamellibranchiata, 6 Gasteropoda, 4 Ptero- 

 poda, and 3 Cephalopoda (including Bellerophon). Of these, 4 

 genera and 32 species are figured and described as new. Those 83 

 species belong to 39 genera, all of which (with the exception of 

 the genera 'J'ribrachyocrinus, Pachydomus, Notomya, and Eurydesma, 

 — new forms at present only known in Australia) are abundant in 



