for the year 1862. xli 



manner whatsoever ; and finding that the whole country 

 around West Maitland had been largely disturbed by 

 volcanic action, eruptions of basalt and porphry protruding 

 through and upheaving the strata on every side ; whilst by 

 simply protracting the drawing on the true scale, a downcast 

 fault of many feet became apparent between the two shafts, 

 of which sections had been sent us ; we felt ourselves 

 justified in rejecting Mr. Clarke's crucial test. 



Our discussion was, on that evening, enlivened, as you 

 will recollect, by the presence of Mr. Gould, the young and 

 talented geologist of Tasmania, (whose life, let us fervently 

 pray, may not have fallen a sacrifice to the enthusiasm with 

 which he has striven to discharge his duties amid the densely 

 wooded ranges of that island.) Mr. Gould's opinion so far 

 corroborated that of Mr. Clarke, that he contended for the 

 paleozoic age of one of the Tasmanian coal-fields, — that 

 between the Mersey and the Don, — on which his official 

 report has since been published ; but in this, as in the 

 former case, the disturbance of the strata by volcanic action 

 has been so excessive as to necessitate the utmost caution ; 

 yet from all that he saw and heard during his resi- 

 dence in the district, he arrived at a conclusion opposite to 

 that which Mr. Selwyn formed in his hurried visit to the 

 spot in 1854. I cannot perceive, however, after the most 

 attentive perusal of his report, that he adduces evidence that 

 the palaaozoic marine fossils lie in any case over the coal ; 

 the facts cited — apart from the suppositions with which 

 they are mixed up — shewing merely that the coal, in 

 several instances, is found on one side of a fault and these 

 fossils on the other ; a juxta-position which by itself proves 

 nothing. 



Turning to other topics : — Much interest has been excited 

 in Europe by the account read before the society by Mr. 

 Fitzgibbon of two huge masses of meteoric iron, which then 



