582 W. H. HUDLESTON ON WEST-AUSTRALIA 2T 



33, Notes on a Collection of Fossils and of Rock-specimens from 

 West Australia, north of the Gascotne riyer. By W. H. 

 Hudleston, Esq., M.A., E.G.S. (Read June 6, 1883.) 

 [Plate XXIII.] 



This collection was made by Mr. Porrest, the colonial surveyor, and 

 forwarded by him together with the accompanying map to Sir Charles 

 Nicholson, by whom the specimens were placed in the hands of Dr. 

 Gwyn Jeffreys for determination. Dr. Jeffreys brought the parcel 

 over to the apartments of the Geological Society, and it was suggested 

 that I should undertake to examine and report upon them. Being 

 quite unaware that the whole of the fossils were palaeozoic, including 

 several species of Polyzoa and Actinozoa, I somewhat rashly under- 

 took a task which, as regards the palaeontology, it would have been 

 impossible for me to have fulfilled, but for the kind assistance of 

 Professor Morris and Mr. Robert Etheridge, junior, to both of whom 

 my acknowledgments and best thanks are due. 



It will scarcely be necessary to refer in detail to the literature of 

 Australian geology on the present occasion. A full list of all the 

 works bearing on the subject is be found in the catalogue by 

 Messrs. Etheridge and Jack, whilst the former gentleman's catalogue 

 of Australian fossils, published at the Cambridge University Press 

 in 1878, is indispensable to any one who takes up this question. 

 There are two works, however, that may be specially mentioned, 

 viz., Strzelecki's ' New South Wales ' &c, with notes on the fauna 

 by Lonsdale and Morris, published in 1845, and De Koninck's 

 ' Recherches sur les fossiles paleozoiques de la Nouvelle Galles du 

 Sud,' published in 1876-7. The Quarterly Journal of the Society 

 contains a most important and interesting paper by the late Mr. 

 Daintree on the geology of Queensland *, together with Mr. Ethe- 

 ridge's valuable appendix on the fossils, chiefly Mollusca. This 

 appendix has been supplemented by a paper read before the Roaly 

 Physical Society of Edinburgh, by Mr. P. Etheridge, junior (Eeb. 

 1880), on a collection of fossils, also Mollusca, from the Bowen-river 

 Coal-field in Northern Queensland, and further by the joint paper of 

 Messrs. Nicholson and Etheridge on Palaeozoic Corals from Northern 

 Queensland f . 



Yery little seems to have been written of late years on the 

 subject of West Australia ; the latest notice I can find in the Soci- 

 ety's Journal is a short paper J by Mr. E. T. Gregory communicated 

 in 1861, wherein the author refers to a geological map and sections 

 presented to the Society as far back as 1847 §. It thus appears that 

 the Society is already in possession of important information regarding 



* Vol. xxviii, p. 271, with appendix by Etheridge, p. 317. 

 t Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 5, vol. iv. p. 265 et seq. 

 | Quart. Journ. Geol, Soc. vol. xvii. p. 475. 

 § See Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. iv. p. 142. 



