226 
PROCEEDINGS 
OF 
THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
POSTPONED PAPERS. 
ONTOLOGY. 
colonizatio re too iztent upon 
the ee concerns of daily life to give much attention to scien- 
tific investigations, and they consequently overlooked many sources 
of wealth which they have since learnt were within their reach. 
The subsequent discovery of the mineral treasures possessed by 
the Australian colonies has shown the importance of their more 
minute and careful survey, and has given an impetus to the study 
of their geological characters. 
The first steps in the exploration of a new country would natu- 
rally be the determination of the prevailing geological formations ; 
and as time and opportunity permitted their minuter subdivisions 
would have to be worked out, and correlated with any of their equi- 
yalents in other parts of the world. 
In this way it was soon established that the chief sedimentary 
deposits in Australia were either Palsozoic or Tertiary, and it 
seemed to be the prevailing opinion that the great intermediate for- 
mations included in the Mesozoic group, comprising the ‘Triassic, 
Jurassic, and Cretaceous rocks, were altogether absent. 
We have been slowly learning that these conclusions were too 
hastily arrived att; and it is at last incontrovertibly established 
that some of the missing Mesozoic beds are represented on the great 
Australian continent. 
Setting aside the question of the geological age of the coal-beds 
of Newcastle in New South Wales, respecting which there was a 
difference of opinion amongst both Australian and other geologists 
(the Rey. W. B. Clarke considering them to be of true Carboniferous 
* For the discussion on this paper see p. 2 of the present volume of the 
Journal. 
t As already shown by the Rev. W. B. Clarke, in his notice of ‘‘ Marine 
Fossiliferous Secondary Formations in Australia,” Quart. Journ. Geol. Soe, vol. 
xxiii. p. 7, 1867. 
