Fossils collected at Wollumbilla. 43 



palseontological evidence, on the general geological age of 

 the deposits, which is the main point on which my opinion 

 is asked. The great interest attaching to these fossils is, 

 that they enable me to state, for the first time, the existence 

 of a distinctly-marked Mesozoio marine fauna in Australia. 

 This it will be remembered has a very interesting bearing on 

 the question at issue between the Rev. Mr. Clarke and myself, 

 as to the age of the Australian coal deposits, which, from 

 the abundance" of Zamites, Tceniopteris, Glossopteris, and 

 other Mesozoic plants, and the total absence in the same beds 

 of the Catamites, Lepidodendron, Sigillaria, Stigmaria, &c, 

 so characteristic of Palaeozoic coal-fields, I always maintained 

 to have been of the Mesozoic age, like the Oolitic coal-fields 

 of Yorkshire, the Liassic coal-fields of Theta, and the Triassic 

 plant beds of many parts of Germany ; in opposition to 

 which Mr. Clarke's most striking argument hitherto was 

 that it was unlikely so rich a Mesozoic flora could exist in 

 a country in which no marine Mesozoic fossils had yet been 

 found. In a former paper to the Royal Society of Victoria, 

 I answered this argument of Mr. Clarke, by referring to the 

 exactly similar circumstances of the Mesozoic coal-field of 

 Richmond, in Virginia. I have now the great pleasure of 

 stating, as a more forcible argument, that the series of 

 animal fossils from Wollumbilla clearly indicates a marine, 

 deposit of exactly the same age as that to which I have for the 

 last fourteen years continued to refer the plant beds of the 

 Hunter district, &c, in New South Wales, as well as more 

 recently our own similar deposits at Western Port, Bellerine, 

 and Portland, namely, to the base of the Mesozoic series, 

 certainly not lower than the Trias, and not higher, I think, 

 than the lower part of the great Oolite ; a period as 

 restricted as I think it is possible for us to indicate at 

 present, when we bear in mind that some of the European 

 Triassic plants are also found in the Lias, and some of the 

 Liassic forms in the higher Oolitic beds, and that in the 

 marine series of Europe of the same dates several Liassic 

 lanimal fossils are found in the Inferior Oolite, and several 

 Inferior Oolite, Mullusca, JEchinodermata,Jic., are found in 

 the great Oolite. 



By far the most interesting specimen is that to which the 

 name Belemnites Barklyi has been assigned, No. 39, a 

 large species, unmistakably belonging to the genus Belem- 

 nites, and most nearly related to the gigantic species of the 

 lower Oolite and Lias of Europe, but which cannot be fully 



