888 Transactions,—G eology. 
correlation of the Mount Potts fossils with the marine strata underlying the 
coal measures of New South Wales is incorrect, and that the proper 
equivalent of the latter in New Zealand is to be found at the base of the 
Maitai series. For instance, in addition to the presence of saurian bones?» 
there is a total absence of true Spirifers; the broad-winged Spirifer that 
has been so often mentioned in connection with the Mount Potts beds being 
really a Spiriferina of the sub-genus Trigonotreta, King, distinguished by 
having a strong central septum in the rostral valve and a punctate shell 
structure, characters wholly wanting in true Spirifers. This particular 
fossil is indeed identical with a species very characteristic of the Permian, 
and it has been collected in many other parts of New Zealand where the 
stratigraphy leaves no doubt of its true position in that formation. No 
true Spirifer has yet been found on the eastern side of the New Zealand 
Alps, and no Spiriferina of the type of Trigonotreta is found in the 
true Spirifer beds at Reefton and in New South Wales, which I refer to 
Lower Carboniferous or Devonian. The ample collections from both the 
Australian and New Zealand localities in support of this are in the Colonial 
Museum, and here therefore arises a conflict of evidence that can only be 
cleared up by knowing what fossils were really submitted to Professor 
McCoy, and what was the wording of his report on them. 
Dr. von Haast, however, could not accept on Professor MeCoy's alleged 
authority that the Clent Hills plant beds were Jurassic, because he was ‘‘ con- 
vinced that they were of the same age" as the Mount Potts beds. He con- 
siders this divergence from his authority has been since justified, because he 
thinks Professor MeCoy has been worsted in a controversy about the age of 
the plant beds associated with coals and marine fossils in New South Wales. 
But in this particular case of the Clent Hills the experience in New Zealand 
has proved that Professor McCoy was quite correct in his alleged determi- 
nation, and this without a whit affecting the question of the age of the 
New South Wales plant beds, as there is not a single fossil plant found in 
the proper coal formation of New South Wales which also occurs among 
the fossil plants of the Clent Hills beds ; on the other hand the latter agree 
perfectly with fossil plants found in the Clarence River (New South Wales), 
in Queensland, and in Tasmania, which are always accepted as Jurassie. 
We thus find that the Mount Potts and the Clent Hills beds form almost 
the lowest and the highest numbers of a great Permio-jurassie system, the 
sequence of which has been very clearly worked out in other parts of New 
Zealand, where there had been less of the ** folding and crumpling " to which 
Dr. von Haast alludes. The Permian base of this system has never been 
found resting with any approach to conformity on the Maitai series, which is 
Lower Carboniferous, the Upper Carboniferous formation or the Lower Coal 
