Professor McCoy's New Taniopteris. 91 



vittata, which ]\Iorris classes as Phillips' Scolopendrium 

 solitarium, the figures of which, in Eronguiart and Phillips, 

 are neither in agreement with Brongniart's generic characters 

 of T<eniopteris, is an Aspidites, viz., A. tceniopterls, and so of 

 others. It appears therefore, to me, that, without taking any 

 positive evidence from stratigraphical data into account, 

 to assign an epoch to an enormous formation (for such it is 

 in this colony), in which no zoological evidence has been de- 

 tected on account of even two genera of plants, the species of 

 which are in the present condition, and the genera of which 

 are referable to more than the assumed epoch, is anything 

 but philosophical. 



Mr. ^Morris, rather on the absence of certain forms, than 

 on the presence of what Stvzelecki had collected, though ad- 

 mittiug the full force of conclusions from the examination of 

 his plants, thought, in 1815^ that in Australia the carbonifer- 

 ous formation had a different vegetable facies from what it 

 had in Eui'ope. And later, ]\Ir. jMcCoy, w^ho knew nothing 

 of Australiau plants, except from the collections which I 

 had made and sent to Professor Sedgwick, came to a conclu- 

 sion which I liave always considered hasty, that because of 

 the absence of certain genera, and the presence of others 

 which have a relation to some oolitic species, there are two 

 carboniferous formations ''^ without any confusion of type,'' 

 one of which was then shown to be at the base of the moun- 

 tain limestone, and the other assumed to be oolitic. At the 

 time, I requested, in a note to the Philosophical Magazine, 

 that geologists would suspend their judgment on the point in 

 dispute. Since then, in full confirmation of what I stated in 

 a paper read to the Geological Society of London, others 

 besides myself have found some of the missing true coal 

 plants, and I am now in a position to point out six localities 

 in this colony, and in Queensland, where they are to be found ; 

 and I was glad to see, on my first visit this year to the Mel- 

 bourne Museum, that one of the said plants had also found 

 its way from Gipps Land, whence I had long before had fine 

 carboniferous specimens. 



The whole question, then, is resolved into this : are there 

 really two carboniferous formations ? 



Professor jNIcCoy has admitted my facts in his paper on 

 the Clark-Sedgwick fossils, in adopting my liabitats. But 

 he was slow in admitting what I stated to him in Februaiy 

 last, that now we have found, in New South Wales, coal 



