THE 



GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE. 



NEW SERIES. DECADE III. VOL. II. 



No. VII.-JULY, 1885. 



0:RXC3rXl<T.A.JL, J^I^TIOXjIES. 



I. — Notes on Some Mesozoic Plant-Remains from South 



Australia. 



By Henry Woodward, LL.D., F.E.S., F.G.S., etc. 



(PLATE YII.) 



THOSE who have attempted a geological exploration of a new 

 country can best appreciate the difficulties which must be over- 

 come by the geologist, and the value of every scrap of fossil evidence 

 met with, however fragmentary, which may serve as an indication 

 of the probable horizon of the strata around him. 



Such evidence comes to the geologist in the field, like the drift- 

 wood to Columbus in the Atlantic, as an earnest of land-ahead, in 

 the midst of an ocean of doubt and difficulty. 



Mr. Henry Y. Lyell Brown, F.G.S., the Government-Geologist 

 for South Australia, to whose reports we have already directed 

 attention in these pages,^ has, with his small Staff, a vast and most 

 arduous task to perform in mapping geologically, even in the most 

 superficial manner, this great country whose Southern area contains 

 upwards of 380,000 square miles, whilst the Northern territor3f, 

 annexed in 1861, gave no less than 523,620 square miles additional ! 

 stretching from sea to sea, and only touched upon heretofore by a 

 geological reconnaissance of the PalEeozoic area near Adelaide in 

 1859,^ and by a second Report on the same in 1862.^ 



As always happens in all such undertakings the Government 

 Geologist is expected to be a second " Moses in the Wilderness," 

 and, like the great lawgiver, it is assumed he needs only to touch 

 the stony rock, and the waters will gush forth! It is to be regretted 

 that the "Divining-rod" is no longer potent for such objects as 

 mines and springs, for in a new country, where both are so greatly 

 in demand, the geologist, who should possess this powerful instru- 

 ment, might fairly expect, if he proved successful, to be canonized as 

 a saint by his fellow-colonists, or, if he failed, to be lynched for an 

 impostor ! In so vast an area as we have indicated, every farmer, 

 land-survej'or, explorer, and prospector, should be laid under con- 

 tribution to bring information to the Government-Geologist as to 



1 See Keview of Report by Government Geologist, Geol. Mag. 1884, p. 29. 

 See also Notes on MoUusca from S. Australia, op. cit. p. 339, PL XI., and on 

 Trilobites, p. 342. Also Annual Report to 31 Dec. 1883, by H. Y. L. Erowu, op. 

 cit. 1885, pp. 41-43. 



^ See A. R. C. Selwyn's Report on Palaeozoic area. Parliamentary Papers for 

 S. Australia, 1859, No. 20. 



^ See E. H. Hargrave's Report on same area. Parliamentary Papers, No. 96, 1864. 



DECADE III. — YOL. II. — NO. VII. 19 



