672 Reports and Proceedings. 



very nearly allied to, British, species ; but the author regards the 

 general type of the Queensland remains as indicating the Upper 

 Oolite. A gigantic species of Crioceras is regarded by the author 

 as possibly indicative of the occurrence of Neocomian deposits 

 in Australia. The fossil evidence upon which Professor M'Coy 

 inferred the occurrence of the Muschelkalk in Australia was said by 

 the author to be nugatory, his supposed Myoplioria proving to be a 

 Trigonia nearly allied to T. gibbosa of the Portland Oolite, and his 

 doubtful Orthoceras a small Serpula. The author had found no 

 indications of the existence of Triassic or Liassic deposits in Queens- 

 land. 



The blocks from Western Australia, referred by the author to the 

 Middle Lias, contain Myacites liassianus (Quenst.), and are quite as 

 highly ferruginous as the English Marlstone. The species identified 

 by the author with British Oolitic species would indicate a range 

 from the Inferior Oolite to the Cornbrash. The author suggests that 

 the species may have had a longer range in time in Australia than in 

 England, or that the subordinate divisions of the Oolite were not 

 clearly marked in the Australian Mesozoic deposits. He is inclined 

 to refer the fossils to the period of the Inferior Oolite. 



The author inferred, from the occurrence of these Mesozoic fossils 

 in drifted blocks at the two extremities of Australia, separated by 

 38° of longitude, that an enormous denudation of rocks of the 

 Secondary series has taken place over a considerable part of Australia. 



Descriptions of a great number of new species were appended to 

 the paper, 



2. " On a Plant and Insect-bed on the Eocky Eiver, New South 

 Wales." By Charles Moore, Esq., F.G.S. 



The organic remains noticed by the author were found by him in 

 a small block of chocolate-coloured, micaceous, laminated marl, ob- 

 tained from a bed about ten feet thick, at a depth of 100-110 feet, in 

 the auriferous drifts of Sydney flats, on the banks of the Eocky 

 Eiver. The author found the leaves of two fonns of Dicotyledonous 

 plants, fragments of a flat narrow leaf, which he refers to the Coni- 

 ferge, a seed-vessel, and the impressions of several seeds. The 

 insect-remains consist principally of the elytra of Beetles, among 

 which Buprestidse appear to predominate. The vegetable-remains 

 seem to indicate that the deposit is of Tertiary age. 



Discussion. — Professor T. Eupert Jones mentioned the discovery of a large Crio- 

 ceras in the Jurassic beds near Port Elizabeth. 



Mr. "W. Boyd Dawkins suggested that we had hardly a right to apply the European 

 standard in judging fossils from all parts of the world, and doubted whether, if these 

 fossils were examined from the purely Australian point of view, the same age would 

 he assigned to them. 



Mr. Seeley agreed with Mr. Dawkins, and argued, from the existence of natural 

 groups in different areas of the globe, that the same must have been the case in 

 former ages. 



Mr. R. Tate remarked that if Mr. Moore had compared the Jurassic fauna with 

 those of India, Africa, and Chili, he would have found the same mixture of forms 

 belonging apparently to different horizons. He considered that the Australian 

 fossils probably represented our Middle Oolite. He did not quite agree with the 

 author as to some of the specific determinations. 



