1872.] ETHEKIDGE — QUEENSLAND FOSSILS. 321 



In 1862 * Mr. Clarke again notices what lie believes to be a 

 Permian fauna in Eastern Australia, between the Balonne and 

 Maranoa rivers (Queensland). They were referred by Professor 

 M'Coy to beds " not younger than the base of the Great Oolite, and 

 not older than the base of the Trias." M'Coy enumerated thirty 

 distinct forms from "Wollumbilla Creek, the river Amby, and a 

 tract on Pitzroy Downsf. To what age these may all belong is 

 doubtful ; Prof. M'Coy, however, believed then that the Wollumbilla 

 fossils were the marine representatives of the so-called Jurassic 

 coal-beds of New South Wales. Mr. Clarke also submitted to Prof. 

 M'Coy some moUusca from the Mantuan Downs, 200 miles north 

 of "Wollumbilla (which were pronounced to be of Permian age — 

 Magnesian Limestone), a form allied to Aulosteges or Strophalosia, 

 and Productus calva. The occurrence of Permian strata has not been 

 confirmed in Australia by subsequent observers ; and the same may 

 be said of the Trias. 



Prof. M'Coy, in 1866, was the first to announce with certainty 

 the discovery of Cretaceous fossils in Australia, from Flinders 

 Biver, base of Walker's Table Mountains^. Gregory having pre- 

 viously doubtfully indicated such a group of fossils, M'Coy described 

 three species, two Inocerami (I. Carsoni and I. Suiherlandi) and one 

 Ammonite {A. Flindersi). The last-named species, I think, I have 

 detected in Mr. Daintree's collection from Hughenden Station. 

 M'Coy, unfortunately, does not give any figures. I have named 

 this Ammonite after Mr. T. L. Mitchell, and referred it for afiinity 

 to A. Beudanti, D'Orb. ; my name may have to give Avay to 

 M'Coy's upon comparison with and reference to the original shell in 

 Victoria. Inoceramus Carsoni, M'Coy, and /. SutherJandi, M'Coy, 

 may be in the Daintree series ; but descriptions of such variable 

 shells as the Inocerami, without figures, render identification almost 

 impossible. 



In 1867 the Eev. W. B. Clarke also communicated to the Society 

 his paper upon the " Marine fossiliferous Secondary Formations in 

 Australia." § 



The author stated that up to the year 1860 no deposit of Secon- 

 dary age had been demonstrated in Eastern Australia, although 

 Belemnites and a few other fossils belonging to a Lower Secondary 

 formation had been found on the Maranoa river in West Queens- 

 land. 



The series then under consideration from Wollumbilla, north of 

 the Condamine river, were not exhibited at the International Exhi- 

 bition in 1862, owing to delay in transit ; they were, however, sub- 

 sequently placed in the hands of Mr. Charles Moore, E.G.S., of 

 Bath, for the purpose of description ; that gentleman, in the year 

 1870, prepared for the Society an elaborate paper describing all the 

 new species, and notes accompanying them. Mr. Moore, in 1862 

 (previously), met accidentally with a collection of fossils in Somerset- 



* Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. yoI. xviii. p. 244. f Ibid. pp. 245, 240. 

 I Trans. Eoyal Soc. Victoria, vol. vii. p. 49. 

 § Quart. Journ. Greol. Soc. vol. xxiii. p. 7. 



