MOORE——AUSTRALIAN MESOZOIC GEOLOGY. 229 
Western Australia.—Like the organic remains sent by Mr. Shenton 
to the Exhibition in 1862, those forwarded by Mr. Clifton to Mr. 
Sanford were unfortunately unaccompanied by any precise description 
of the beds, or the locality from which they were derived. Mr. 
Sanford informs me he believes the latter were obtained near either 
Shark’s Bay or Champion Bay, Western Australia, his strong im- 
pression being that they are from the former locality. In this case 
their locality would be nearly 150 miles north of the Greenough 
Flats, from which districts the specimens sent by Mr. Shenton to 
the Exhibition were said to have come. Mr. Sanford also informs 
me that a soft limestone deposit extends in this district for some 
distance nearly parallel with the coast, lying on older gneiss and 
Paleozoic rocks, which, in the interior, contain copper and lead. 
He believes, from information he received, when in the colony, from 
Mr. Gregory and others, that this limestone may also be found in 
many places on the coast itself*. 
On first examining the specimens from Western Australia, I at 
once observed that their matrix presented different lithological cha- 
racters, such as might be expected to occur with remains derived 
either from various beds in the same geological formation, or still 
more probably should they have been obtained from formations of 
different geological ages. Mere lithology is not always a safe guide, 
and the less so when beds have to be correlated from points so 
wide asunder as Australia and England: but in this instance there 
could scarcely be a mistake ; and even had no distinctive fossils been 
present, a geologist acquainted with the secondary rocks of England 
and Hurepe could hardly have failed to refer the greater number of 
the specimens to the horizon of the Lower Oolitic rocks. Associated 
with these were Upper-Lias species, whose matrix was perfectly 
identical with a ferruginous or variegated limestone of the Upper 
Lias occurring near Bath, where itis only about two feet in thickness. 
And the Middle Lias or Marlstone was not left unrepresented ; for 
from this formation Myacites liassianus, Quenst., and a Pholadomya 
occur. 
The Middle Lias is the formation from which, in the north of 
England, such an enormous quantity of iron is being manufactured, 
the beds yielding an average of 32 per cent. of metallic iron. It is 
not a little remarkable that this comparatively thin horizon of the 
earth’s crust should, at the antipodes, present similar mineralogical 
conditions. I haye had portions of two of the blocks analyzed ; 
one of them gave 49 and the other 56 per cent. of metallic iron. 
In this way, lithologically, and almost without the evidence of the 
fauna they contain, the Western-Australian specimens might be 
decided to be contemporaneous with the Lower Oolites and the 
Upper and Middle Lias of this country, from which they are 16,000 
miles separated. — 
' The separate blocks or specimens in my possession from Western 
Australia are about sixty in number, and include many duplicates 
* These limestones are referred by Mr. Gregory, though with some doubt, to 
the Cretaceous series. (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xvii. 1861, p. 477.) 
