Maranoa District in Queensland. 33 



1861 — the tendency of present opinions is to remove the 

 alleged Oolitic coal to a lower horizon. Thus Sir C. 

 Bimbury considers the Glossopteris and Phyllotheca beds of 

 India as either Palaeozoic or Mesozoic, the " question " being 

 " an open one." Mr. Hislop considers that these beds, to- 

 gether with those of New South .Wales, " probably represent 

 the Jurassic (or possibly the Triassic) period." Professor 

 Huxley, examining the reptilian remains of the Bengal coal- 

 fields, pronounces them to have a connection with the 

 reptiles of the African Kami beds (in which Glossopteris 

 occurs), and that the rocks in which these reptilian remains 

 occur are probably " Triassic or perhaps of Permian age."* 



Sir Charles Lyell has already surrendered the reputed 

 " Oolitic " coal of Virginia to the Trias, and Dr. Oldham, in 

 India, maintains, that the India and New South Wales coal 

 is even older than that. 



Whilst then advocating my own view of the probable age 

 of the coal-beds of New South Wales, from the fact, that 

 the vegetable fossils, which are taken as the datum for the 

 Oolitic age of the coal, have been traced into a position 

 between rocks- assigned, from their distinctive zoological 

 fossils, to be as low as the " base " of the old " Carboniferous 

 system" I have not been indifferent to the opinions or 

 determinations of others with respect to the younger period 

 assigned by them to the disputed beds. 



Under the influence, therefore, of a hearty desire to co- 

 operate in the endeavour to ascertain the truth of opinions, 

 promulgated on one hand or the other, as affects the suc- 

 cession of geologic epochs in Australia, I requested a friend, 

 who is resident in the Maranoa district (now a portion of 

 the new colony of Queensland), to search the rocks in his 

 district, and to forward to me any fossils that he might 

 discover, having been led to consider it likely that, under 

 the wide-spread tertiary deposits of the plains westward of 

 Darling Downs, if any where, traces of formations of 

 Mesozoic age would be discovered. 



I was induced to look in that direction from circum- 

 stances which it may be well to mention. On the return of 

 the late Sir T. Mitchell from his survey of the head of the 

 Victoria, and on the subsequent return of the late Mr. 

 Kennedy, I had an opportunity of inspecting a few of the 

 specimens collected by them, consisting chiefly of fossil 



* Abstracts of Proceedings. No. 63. Session 1861-2. 

 D 



