for the year 1861. . xxiii 



and Dr. Oldham, the director of the Geological Survey of 

 India ; all of whom, however, pin their faith on my rev. 

 friend's announcement, that he has in certain instances 

 obtained the spiriferas products, and other true carbonifer- 

 ous shells, from beds situated above those which contain the 

 fossil plants in dispute. 



Were this one fact ascertained beyond the possibility of 

 error, and proved not to be due to the accidental contortion 

 or dislocation to which strata have sometimes been sub- 

 jected, the question would be at an end ; and so desirable do 

 I regard it for the progress of geological science, especially in 

 Australia and India, that it should be settled without loss 

 of time, that were our Government geologist possessed of 

 more leisure, I should long since have urged his being des- 

 patched to New South Wales to make a special investigation 

 on the spot, as he formerly did in Tasmania, where he 

 established the position of this same plant-bearing sandstone, 

 as being in every case above the clay in which the pachy- 

 domous shells are there embedded. 



Failing this, I am in hopes, from what Sir William Denison 

 told me, of procuring a report on this subject from Mr. 

 Keene, the inspector of coal-fields in JNew South Wales, who 

 is engaged in investigating the stratigraphical succession of 

 these deposits. 



Meanwhile the controversy has been revived, and carried 

 on with much ability on both sides, in consequence of the 

 discovery a few months ago, in our own Cape Patterson 

 coal-field, of a fossil fern, of a kind called, from its fancied 

 resemblance to a wreath, Tceniopteris, a genus classed by 

 palaeontologists among those typical of the oolitic formation, 

 so that its presence strengthens the previous inference as to 

 our coal being of that age. 



More recently still Professor M'Coy has procured from the 

 fossil plant beds at Bellerine, near Geelong, three distinct 



