Maranoa District in Queensland. 35 



opteris, Vertebraria or Phyllotkeca, though Sphenopteris was 

 abundant. I reported the existence of this coal-field and the 

 resemblance of some of the beds to those of the Hawkesbury, 

 in my Report, No. X. (14th October, 1853), to the Govern- 

 ment of New South Wales* 



It did not surprise me to find coal without Glossopteris in 

 Darling Downs, since I knew of its existence in the Hawkes- 

 bury rocks under similar circumstances. 



The researches of Mr. Gould, in Tasmania, have shown 

 that coal exists, not only in beds allowed to be parallel with 

 those of Newcastle, in New South Wales, but in the beds 

 along the Mersey, which are the equivalent of those on the 

 Hunter, considered to be on the horizon of the base of the 

 old " CarboDiferous system " of Ireland. And I was glad to 

 find that Mr. Gould -f* confirmed my own statements respect- 

 ing the latter fact, made on the spot in 1860, considering, as 

 I did, that the Mersey rocks were in the same position as 

 those at Stony Creek, near West Maitland. 



I have since, and only by the last mail, learned that coal, 

 in association with " Carboniferous fossils," has been detected 

 in Western Australia ; whilst, in another part of that 

 colony, Ammonites and Trigonias have been found, and have 

 been referred to "probably the Cretaceous formation."! 



When there, my friend, Mr. W. P. Dawson, of Wollum- 

 billa, on the Yaboo River, sent me a collection of fossils from 

 the eastern part of the Maranoa district, and which I 

 recognised as Mesozoic, though, at first, I considered them, 

 from the occurrence of certain genera and other particulars, 

 to be at the base of the Cretaceous system, and which I 

 afterwards found to be incorrect. I saw at a glance that it 

 was possible they might illustrate some portion of the series 

 from the Wianamatta beds downwards, and knowing the 

 deep interest which His Excellency takes in the subject, I 

 reported them to him, and suggested that I should be 

 willing and ready to forward them for the examination of 

 Professor M'Coy, to whom they were most appropriately 

 submitted, considering the interest he also has in the 

 question, and the fact that most of the previous palseonto- 

 logical determinations, on which a controversy hinged, had 



* Geology of Basin of the Condamine Eiver. Blue Book, December 1854, 

 p. 33, 34. 

 t Report to Government of Tasmania. 

 t Letters from Geological Society, June 1861. 



D 2 



