li PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
glomerates. Making due allowance for local variations and chemical 
differences in the associated igneous rocks, we might suppose ourselves 
reading descriptions of the manner in which the great red deposits of 
the British Islands, known as the new red sandstone, were accumu- 
lated, viewing the subject on the large scale. Whatever the geological 
age of these American deposits may finally be found to be, when we 
compare them with the detrital deposits on the east of the Atlan- 
tic, this upsetting of the paleeozoic rocks, the accumulation of pebbles 
and sand, with such an abundance of intermixed peroxide of iron as 
to produce a general red tit, here and there variegated with others, 
and the association of igneous rocks (such as that so common in 
Devonshire), bear a general resemblance to the accumulation known 
to us as the new red sandstone. At the same time it should be borne 
in mind, that though this red deposit may not be older than our new 
red sandstone, supposing the Nova Scotia coal a true equivalent to 
the paleeozoic coal-measures of the British Islands, we have as yet no 
sufficient evidence as to how far it may correspond in geological time 
with that durmg which the oolitic or jurassic series of Europe was 
formed. We have already seen that inferences have been drawn as 
to the equal geological date of a coal-bearing series of deposits in 
Eastern Virginia with the lower part of that series ; and though phy- 
sical changes may have so taken place in Western Europe, that they 
have been productive of mineral accumulations which we may con- 
veniently divide, as has been done, into Permian, triassic and jurassic 
or oolitic deposits, it by no means follows that the lke have taken 
plece in precisely the same geological times on the area of North 
America. We may have marked accumulations there formed at 
geological times requiring other convenient divisions for classification. 
The red deposits of Nova Scotia are due to certaim physical 
conditions which may have been often repeated. Thus while we 
give due weight to the resemblances between the new red sandstone 
series of Western Europe, viewing it on the large scale, and the Nova 
Scotia red sandstone, we should still look for further evidence re- 
specting the latter. Should it eventually be found probable that 
the two are of the same date, this contemporaneous disturbance of 
certain districts composed of paleeozoic rocks in Western Europe and 
North-eastern America will offer a subject of no slight interest con- 
nected with great disturbances of portions of our earth’s surface at 
different geological times. 
Two communications from the Rev. W. B. Clarke, one on the 
genera and distribution of plants in the Carboniferous system of 
New South Wales, and the other on the occurrence of Trilobites in 
the same country, refer to the classification of the rocks m which 
these organic remains occur with the paleeozoic series. According 
to Mr. Clarke, the same genera of plants which are characteristic of 
the carboniferous epoch in Europe prevail im these Australian forma- 
tions, and though the species are different, they are not more so 
than might be expected at the antipodes of Europe. Mr. Clarke 
considers that there is evidence of coal deposits along the flanks of 
the mountain range of Tasmania and Australia for a distance of 1200 
