310 Remarks on Professor McCoy's Commentary. 



will find tliat I allude only in that number to Tseniopteris,, and 

 to no other genus ; whereas he includes the other genera, to 

 which I did not then allude. 



His third remark, in the third paragraph, does not appear 

 to me to settle the -question in reference to Virginia ; for the 

 coal-field of Virginia is, as respects zoological fossils, exactly 

 in the condition of the coal-field of New South Wales ; and, 

 therefore, so far they are certainly parallel; but neither can 

 be proved to be oolitic, except by the plants ; and Mr. 

 Bunbury distinctly points out that the evidence of the 

 Virginian plants is ambiguous, and he concludes that the 

 Richmond coal-field might as well be referred to the triassic 

 or to the Jurassic series*. 



In the fourth paragraph, Mr. McCoy assumes that I have 

 used the v^ or d formation in the sense of bed. That I presume 

 would be unnecessary to reply to. But when I wrote that 

 passage, I wrote from memory. I have since found Mr. 

 Oldham's letter (which I place for reference in the hands of 

 His Excellency the President), and I find he mentions five 

 distinct groups, all unconformable. He says, that in the 

 lowest beds he finds Glossopteris Browniana Vertebraria, as 

 in Australia; and he adds, " we have Glossopteris in the 

 higher beds also, but not the same species.^'' I understand 

 Mr. Oldham to speak of the higher and the lower beds in 

 reference to the whole mass of the coal-bearing rocks, which 

 he has separated into five groups. 



Now, Mr. McCoy says the Glossopteris, &c,, accompany 

 Ammonites in India, and therefore, are oolitic. But he did 

 not mean, surely, to say this of Bengal. He must have 

 alluded to cutch, where no doubt such plants as Ptilophylum, 

 Lycopodites, Codites, Equisetites, &c., occur with ?«/j/jer 

 oolitic shells. I did not know, however, that there was any 

 authority ^Hwenty years ago''' for aflirming, as Mr. McCoy 

 does, that the genera Tseniopteris and Glossopteris are, 

 even in cutch, associated with the fossils named. Nor have 

 we any reason to believe that it is the case now; for Mr. 

 Oldham distinctly refers the cutch beds, not to the oolites, 

 but to the Avealden. If so, they cannot contain, as Mr. 

 McCoy says, '' the loiver oolitic fossils of the clear sections of 

 Europe.'' 



Bespecting Africa, I am quite aware that Glossopteris 

 occurs in the Dicynodon beds; but I am also aware that Mr. 



•• Q. J. iii., 287— 8. 



