90 Rev. W. B, Clarke's Communication on 



hesitate, at present, to admit that such a discovery determines 

 the fact of the existence of the Jurassic formation in Victoria. 

 Of course, not loiowing what species have been found, or even 

 if the genus be really Tmiiopteris (for many of those plants so 

 called are not Taniopteris at all), it is impossible for me to 

 come to any conclusion on the subject. But in a paper which 

 I propose to write, so soon as I can find leisure, I will en- 

 deavour to show what are the real grounds upon which I have 

 ventui'ed to contend, and still do contend, against the sweep- 

 ing assertion of those geologists who maintain that a formation 

 so abundant in zoological fossils (more so than, perhaps, any 

 other) as the Jurassic, is found here, where no one, in any 

 part of the Australian continent, has ever detected one single 

 species, on the strength of the evidence derived from a few 

 (probably not six in all) species of plants, the true description 

 of which does not agree in all things with the typical charac- 

 ters of the genera under which the species are ranked. 



The two genera, 7temoj9 if ms and Glossopteris (Sagenopteris), 

 have been the means of placing, by some geologists, the coal 

 deposits of Australia and India in the horizon of the oolitic 

 coal. Now the latter occurs in no less than five distinct 

 formations in India, as Mr. Oldham informs me, and it also 

 occurs in Africa, where the evidence appears to be against 

 the supposed epoch. 



As to Tceniopteris, so far from the genus determining the 

 age of a formation, Jukes, who follows Bronn, assigns the 

 species thus : — 



Carboniferous . . . . 1 l 



Permian 

 Trias 

 Oolitic 

 Tertiary 



I [ Oolitic 6, 



g I not 7. 



IJ 



It is, therefore, the species which must determine whether the 

 new found plants belong to the oolites or not ; and when we 

 come to Yorkshire, which is one of the references, we find in 

 Phillips no figure of any species of Tanioj^teris , and only one 

 catalogued T. latifolia, of which he gives as synonym T. 

 major of Lindley and Hutton, which is not a Taniopteris at 

 all, i.e. if we are to regard Brongniart^s description of the 

 genus as that to which we are, undoubtedly, to have respect. 

 Again, Morris assigns to T. major the synonym Aspidites 

 Williamsonis, from Goppert, to which genus it certainly be- 

 longs. The last writer also shows that another species, T. 



