32 



Art. XIV. — On the Carboniferous and other Geological 

 Relations of the Maranoa District in Queensland in 

 Reference to a Discovery of Zoological Fossils in Wol- 

 lomhilla Greek and; Stoney Greek, West Maitland. By 

 Rev. W. B. Clarke, M.A., F.G.S., &c. 



[Read 30th December, 1861] 



In the admirable inaugural address delivered by His 

 Excellency, the President of the Royal Society of Victoria, 

 at the beginning of the present year, some remarks were 

 made respecting the probable future discovery of further 

 evidence of the existence of true Secondary or Mesozoic 

 formations in Australia. The existence of the middle 

 division of those formations, as supposed to be exemplified 

 by the coal measures of New South Wales, has been disputed 

 by me, and that upon grounds which have already, in part, 

 been laid before this Society, and in publications of other 

 kinds. 



Strictly speaking, the existence of Mesozoic formations 

 has not been disputed by me ; all that my proposition 

 amounts to is the denial that the coal beds of New South 

 Wales are Oolitic, and that up to a certain date (August, 

 1860), no one had detected a Jurassic fossil in any part of 

 Australia.* Sir Henry Barkly, in dealing with this state- 

 ment, pointed out that since it was made, certain fossils had 

 been discovered at Bellerine (which might be either Oolitic 

 or Triassic), viz., species of Zamites, and that subsequently 

 Mesozoic Unios had been detected at Portland Bay coal- 

 fields. 



Well established facts of such kinds must have their due 

 weight ; but whilst they bear upon a general declaration as 

 to the non-detection of fossils of Mesozoic age up to a certain 

 period, they leave the particular facts relating to the coal- 

 fields of New South Wales untouched. 



The correlation of those coal-fields with certain alleged 

 Oolitic coal-fields of Europe, India, and America, has, how- 

 ever, lately received some discouragement from the results 

 of examinations undertaken by competent Palaeontologists. 

 And — as appears in the number of the Quarterly Journal of 

 the Geographical Society of London, published in August, 



* Southern Gold-fields, p. 252. 



