Maranoa District in Queensland. 37 



supposed to be detected, I shall have no difficulty in 

 admitting, on sufficient evidence, the existence of any portion 

 of the Mesozoic rocks in New Holland, whether upper, 

 middle, or. lower. And although I have maintained with 

 some earnestness certain opinions as to the age of the New 

 South Wales coal-beds, and those, too, in accordance with 

 similar opinions as strenuously maintained by other ob- 

 servers ; yet, if the evidence already possessed be over- 

 weighed by fresh light, it will be no part of my philosophy 

 to resist the force of it. 



I will now enter upon a few remarks relating to the 

 district in which the Wollumbilla fossils were found, with 

 some particulars of the physical features of the country. 



The districts, called Darling and Fitzroy Downs, lie to 

 the westward of the meridional part of the Cordillera, and 

 are at a higher level above the sea on the northern and 

 eastern border than are the coal-bearing beds on the coast 

 side. Thus, the profitable seams of the Illawarra range from 

 the sea level to about 800 feet above it, whilst on the Hunter 

 River country many are a long way below the sea level. 

 On the Condamine and its feeders the level is from 1,300 to 

 1,600 feet. 



Thus, also, whilst on the eastern side of the Cordillera the 

 escarpment is very steep and the workable coal lies generally 

 at the base of the Hawkesbury rocks, which range above 

 the sea along the coast to the height of 2,000 feet, on the 

 western side, where the country at the base of the Cordillera 

 gradually slopes away into the interior, the occurrence of the 

 coal is at a height which is only attained by the Hawkes- 

 bury rocks above Illawarra. 



In. the small coal-seams of the Hawkesbury and Wiana- 

 matta beds, the Glossoxderis shales are wanting, as they are, 

 so far as I know at present, in the Downs, where the plants 

 are like those of the Wianamata beds. 



Over the coal-bearing beds of the latter districts, which 

 are chiefly a Psammite or argillaceous flagstone, lie the 

 deep blacksoil of the plains (which appears to me to resemble 

 the Regur of India), in which the remains of gigantic mar- 

 supials, fishes, fragments of drift-gravel, fossil- wood, jasper, 

 &c., abound. 



The Condamine river, which rises in the northern 

 extremity of the granitic plateau of New England, runs first 

 north and then west parallel with the range of the Cor- 

 dillera, and is then joined by the Balonne River, which comes 



