xxiv President's Address 



species of a genus styled Zamites, from its resemblance to 

 an existing tribe of cycadeous trees called Zamia, a sort of 

 dwarfish cross between the palms and firs, common in the 

 subtropical regions of Australia ; and as thirty species of 

 Zamites are known to exist in the oolitic beds of Europe, 

 whilst not one has ever been attributed to any Paleeozoic bed, 

 he not unnaturally considers this further discovery conclusive 

 proof of the correctness of his views. Still the challenge 

 thrown out by Mr. Clarke, in his recent interesting work on 

 the southern gold-fields of New South Wales, that " no one 

 has ever detected a single zoological fossil of Jurassic age in 

 any portion of Australia," could not have been satisfactorily 

 answered but for the still more recent detection in the Port- 

 land Bay coal-fields, mingled with the same fossil plants as 

 at Bellerine, of shells which Professor M'Coy unhesitatingly 

 pronounces to be unios of the strictly normal type, which 

 has existed ever since the Mesozoic period, as contra-distin- 

 guished from the improperly named unios of the Palaeozoic 



If this prove, on further examination, to be the case, the 

 question as to the age of our coal will be set at rest for ever, 

 and all the speculations which have been founded on the 

 alleged absence of secondary deposits from the Australian 

 continent, will fall to the ground, leaving the peculiarity of 

 its fauna and flora, the non-disappearance of the kangaroo 

 and other marsupial animals, and the continued existence of 

 the she-oak, and such like ancient forms of vegetation, to be 

 otherwise accounted for than by supposing, as has been done, 

 that the elevation of the land throughout the Mesozoic period 

 was continuous and uninterrupted, so that Australia would 

 represent a portion of the great secondary continent, which 

 has ever since remained isolated and unaltered. 



The labours, of Mr. Selwyn and Professor M'Coy tend, 

 on the contrary, to demonstrate that the land here has 



