Coal-beds and Palaeozoic Rocks of New South Wales. 209 



series of rocks, and to afford additional testimony to the proof 

 derivable from the rocks at Muree, that the supposed distinction 

 of sera is not justified by actual knowledge of this country. Should 

 my future explorations of the territory with which I am geologi- 

 cally familiar, extending over 15,000 or 16,000 square miles, not 

 confirm my position, I will avow it ; but the facts I have already 

 mentioned require explanation, and I can see no other than 

 this. 



As the coal occurs always in patches or areas of limited extent, 

 it may be supposed to have been drifted into hollows in the then 

 sea-bottom, and so entangled amidst the fossiliferous beds. And 

 as to the prevailing character of the plants, it is quite possible 

 that formerly plants of oolitic character might grow at an earlier 

 epoch in Australia than in Europe, whilst the oceans in each 

 hemisphere might have a common fauna. It would be strange 

 if the botany of Australia at any period was identical with that 

 of any part of Europe at any one period, but there is nothing 

 extraordinary in believing such a condition of oceanic life. 



So long as the fossil wood of the coal-measures, and leaves and 

 stems of Glossopteris occur in the same rock-specimens with the 

 Spirifers, Products, Conularice, &c, which I maintain they do, and 

 since Mr. M'Coy has without doubt assigned the true epoch to 

 the latter, I must take the liberty of expressing my belief from 

 what I have seen, and know from actual and careful and repeated 

 examination of a very extensive region during several years, that 

 there is no break in our Australian series of deposits, and that 

 if the palaeozoic fossils are of the lowest carboniferous age, so the 

 age of the coal-plants is nearly identical with it, there being only 

 such interval as is necessary to a succession of deposits. 



The freshwater limestone containing Bulimus and Helix, de- 

 scribed by Strzelecki (p. 139), in connexion with the variegated 

 sandstone, has in this colony, where it abundantly occurs, no 

 connexion whatever with that sandstone. It is clearly a tertiary 

 or more recent travertine, and I have found it in numerous loca- 

 lities, containing in some places impressions of leaves, casts of 

 branches and seed-vessels of Casuarina, and in one locality, 

 Stone-quarry Creek, bones apparently of kangaroo. 



Lastly, I may mention, that I have examined the manner of 

 growth of our Casuarina, since Mr. M'Coy suggested their prox- 

 imity to the Phyllotheca of the Australian coal-beds, and must 

 confirm the general resemblance pointed out by him. But I 

 have nowhere in the bush seen any species of Casuarina which 

 in any manner exhibits the expansion of its leaves in the way 

 exhibited by the Mulubimba plants. There can be no doubt 

 that the branches spring from within the sheaths in all our 

 Casuarina, but I have never found in many thousand examina- 



