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Progress of Geology. 21 
There are, indeed, other grounds for believing that coal, both 
of the Mesozoic as well of the old Carboniferous age may exist 
in Australia. Thus, putting aside the fossil evidences collected 
in Victoria by M’Coy and Selwyn, we learn from the researches 
of Mr. Frank Gregory in Western Australia, that Mesozoic fos- 
sils (probably Cretaceous and Oolitic) occur in that region; 
whilst “ gr W.B. “age informs me in a letter just received, 
that he on of a group of fossils transmitted from 
Giataaland, 700 or 800 miles north of Sydney, which he is dis- 
to refer to the age of the Chalk; there being among the 
fossils Belemnites, Pentacrinites, Pectines, Mytili, Modiol, &e. 
Again the same persevering geologist has. procured from New 
Zealand the remains of a fossil Saurian, which, he thinks, is al- 
lied to the Plesiosaurus.* 
It would therefore appear that in the southern hemisphere, 
there is not merely a close analogy between the rocks of Pals- 
zoic age and our own, but further, that as far as the Mesozoic 
formations have been developed, they also seem to be equivalents 
of our typical Secondary deposits. 
his existence of groups of animals during the Silurian, De- 
vonian, Carboniferous, and even in Mesozoic periods in Australia 
and New Zealand, similar to those which characterize these for- 
mations in. Europe, is strongly in contrast with the state of nature 
which began to prevail in the younger Tertiary period. We 
know from the writings of Owen that at that time the great con- 
tinent at our Antipodes was already characterized by the pre- 
sence of those marsupial forms which still distinguish its fauna 
from that of any other part of the world. 
In relation to our Australian colonies, I must also announce 
that I have recently been gratified in receiving from M 
Chambers and Finke, of Adelaide, a collection of the specimens. 
collected by MeDouall Stuart, in his celebrated traverse (the first 
one ever made) from South Australia to the watershed of North 
Australia, *».* 
hese specimens are soft, white, chalky rocks, with flints, 
agates, oss and ferruginous incrustations, tufas, breccias, 
white quartz rocks, and a few specimens of “quasi-voleanic rock, 
but with ie a fragment that can be referred to the older sta- 
te Lower Silurian age like those of Victoriat Again, the 
fossil shells collected by Mr. Stuart — ~ precise Jat- 
ota eis unknown to me) are Mytiloid and Mya-like forms, seem- 
ingly indicating a Tertiary age, and thus we may be dis 
rovisionally to infer that large tracts of the low interior between 
ast and d West Australia have in very recent geological periods 
been occupied by the sea. 
* Whilst this is Laer through nt ess, Professor Owen has described this in- 
teresting fossil, before this Section, lesiosaurus Australis 
+ Itm me however, be noted that the - pepage sent to me consists of small 
rock forming an imperfect seri 
