1847.] CLARKE ON CARBONIFEROUS PLANTS OF N.S. WALES. 61 
which may be joined together; or forming a conglomerate of silky 
fragments and chips*. 
In December 1845, my friend Mr. J. B. Jukes, F.G.S. (late of 
H.M.S. Fly), examined with me a portion of the Illawarra coast, 
north of Wallongong; and he there saw coniferous trees and a true 
Stigmaria imbedded in the beach rock of Ballambai. He will also, 
doubtless, remember my pointing out to him sections of fossilized co- 
niferous trees, amidst the basaltic blocks and disturbed coal strata of 
Towrudgi Point. Further to the south, as at Munniwarree, fragments 
of these coniferous trees are imbedded in the low cliffs, amidst a mul- 
titude of Sprrifers, Producti, Goniatites, and Pleurotomarie ; a fact 
incidentally mentioned to justify the opinion I have formed as to the 
comparative age of our Australian Coal-fields ; which will be further 
illustrated hereafter by a still more striking reference. 
There is, indeed, scarcely a tract of the region in question in which 
coniferous wood has not been found. I have observed branches and 
stems of trees, washed out of the strata, lying, as mere surface-drift, 
upon the mountains at the height of at least 3000 feet above the 
sea; and if we calculate from such a point downwards through the 
probable thickness of all the carboniferous strata, the Coniferee will 
be found to lie at all elevations throughout a vertical range of not 
less than 6000 feet. 
I have already mentioned the occurrence of Stigmaria at Ballam- 
bai. At Awaaba, Sigillarie of various species are crowded together 
in the white fire-clays of the coal seams; and at Muswellbrook on 
the Upper Hunter the remains of Sigillarie of gigantic size distin- 
guish the sandstones. They have been also found at Mulubimba 
near Newcastle, and in some other localities, especially in the soft 
grits and sandstones along the Paterson and Allyn rivers, which there 
overlie fossiliferous beds that in mineralogical and conchological con- 
ditions have a great resemblance to rocks of the Silurian epoch. 
Lepidodendra occur mm the shales of the Manila River, about 
30° S., and on the Namoi and Gwydir rivers, on the western flanks 
of the Cordillera. 
On Pini Ridge, also to the westward near Wellington Valley, a 
fine specimen of Ulodendron, named by me after its finder, A. Tem- 
pler, Esq., U. Templeri, was discovered in 1842. 
Lepidodendra also occur in the grits and mudstones of the Paterson, 
and in the hard siliceous metamorphic rocks of Colocalo on the Allyn, 
with a multitude of Orthide, Atrype, Trilobites, Strophomene, &c., 
proving that the coal plants are found imbedded in. true marine de- 
posits, and far lower m the geological scale than even the Productus 
beds of Munniwarree or Wollongong. 
Passing upwards again, in geological order, far above the great 
sandstone (the variegated sandstone of Strzelecki, assumed by him 
to be the highest beds in the geological series in the two colonies)‘, 
and which, by way of distinguishing it, I will call the Hawkesbury 
* Similar fossilized wood occurs in Tasmania (see Tasm. Journ. vol. i. p. 24), 
+ Phys. Des. p. 129. 
