360 PKOCEEDTir&S OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY, [April 24. 



in the paper that it was almost impossible to follow the whole of 

 them. The connexion of the gold-bearing reefs with the igneous 

 rocks seemed to him v^ry remarkable. It had in former times been 

 suggested that there was some limitation of auriferous deposits to 

 Palaeozoic rocks, and he wished to know whether the author's ob- 

 servations corroborated such a view, which appeared to him pro- 

 blematical. He commented on the value of foreign collections of 

 fossils such as that exhibited, and called attention to the rich stores 

 of that kind preserved in the museum of the Society, which would 

 be found of great assistance by any one studying the geology of 

 Australia. 



Mr. Daiktree, in reply, stated that in the West-Maitland beds 

 GlossopteriN was found distinctly underlying beds containing Spirifera 

 and other distinctly Carboniferous species. He had no doubt of Glos- 

 sopteris being in Queensland a purely Palaeozoic form. He had been 

 unable to trace any igneous action whatever over the whole of the 

 cretaceous plains to the westward ; and the absence of igneous or 

 metamorphic rocks was further proved by the natives having to 

 obtain the materials for their tomahawks by exchange from those 

 nearer the coast. In the proximity of the dykes he had not found 

 any signs of alteration of structure ; but the occurrence of gold in 

 the Devonian area was, according to his experience, limited to the 

 close neighbourhood of the dykes. 



Prof. Ramsay remarked on the Desert Sandstone, and pointed out 

 that, though stratigraphically of such importance, the amount of geo- 

 logical time it represented was probably but small. The changes, how- 

 ever, of which it bore evidence since Miocene times, were enough 

 to strike the mind with astonishment, and to convey some idea of 

 the great variations in the physical features of the surface of the 

 world, even within the period during which possibly the human 

 race had existed. 



