250 ME. W. T. BLANPOED Olf THE OCCITEEENCE OF 



'With the higher of these beds we are not at present concerned: 

 some of them in India and Australia are proved to be of Jurassic 

 age by the association of marine fossiliferous strata, and I have 

 elsewhere * shown what an extraordinary resemblance exists between 

 the geological features of the South- African and Indian formations. 

 Turning to the lower series, the first noteworthy point of similarity 

 is the presence in all of coal-seams with a flora containing closely 

 allied or identical species, the nearest allies of which are found, in 

 Europe, in rocks of Mesozoic and, for the most part, of Jurassic age. 

 The next feature to be noticed is the occurrence in all these regions 

 of boulders supposed to have been transported by ice f. 



In Australia alone marine fossiliferous formations are intercalated 

 towards the base of the plant-beds. Species of Orthoceras^ Spirifer, 

 Conidaria. Fenestella, and other fossils of typically Carboniferous 

 affinities are found both above and below certain coal-beds, known 

 as the Stony-Creek beds. Dr. Feistmantel, to whom we are indebted 

 for the best and most recent description of the Australian fossil 

 flora +, records from the Stony-Creek beds one species of Nceggera- 

 thiopsis (a cycad), four of Glossopteris (a fern), one of Annularia 

 and one of Phyllotheca (Equisetacese). All of these genera, except 

 Annularia, are found in the overlying ISTewcastle beds, and also in 

 the Damuda series of India ; and most of the species are either 

 identical with IN'ewcastle forms or very closely allied. 



This intercalation, though clearly proved by the publication of 

 sections from coal-pits by the Eev. W. B. Clarke § in 1865, and 

 though supported by the evidence of every geologist who has visited 

 the beds (and the number is considerable), has been doubted or 

 rejected by many palaeo-botanists. It is scarcely necessary to say 

 that it is fully confirmed by Mr. Oldham. Merely because of the 

 singular unwillingness on the part of some of the best writers on 

 fossil botany to admit the force of evidence that has long since 

 convinced geologists, it may be useful to quote Mr. Oldham's 

 words. After referring to the doubts that had been thrown upon 

 the observations of the Rev. W. B. Clarke and other geologists, and 

 to the suggestion by their opponents that the apparent superposition 

 of Carboniferous marine beds upon strata containing Glossopteris &c. 

 must be due to inversion or faulting, he proceeds thus : — 



" Such a conclusion, however, could not be allowed by any one who 

 had seen the ground where these beds are exposed. The section 

 is fortunately easily accessible by the Great Northern Railway 

 starting from Newcastle, and the beds are well exposed in the 

 frequent cuttings. There are two exposures of these lower Coal- 

 measures on opposite sides of an anticlinal, one at Stony Creek, two 

 miles west of Branxton, and the other at Greta, ten miles further 



* Eept. Brit. Assoc. 1884, p. 705. 



t For details and references see ' Manual of the Greologj of India,' chapter v. 

 Feistmantel, ' Palseontologia Indica,' ser. ii., xi., xii., Eec. G. S. 1. 1880, p. 250 

 Oldham, J. A. S. B. liii. p. 187. 



]. Palseoatographica, 1878-79 ; Pal. u. mes. Flora im ostl. Australien. 



§ Trans. Roy. Soc. Victoria, vol. yi. p. 27, pi. 2. 



