1873.] ETHERTDGE AUSTRALIAN LIGNITE. 567 



During 1871 the Lal-Lal Brown Coal Company raised 995 tons 

 of brown coal, only half of which, however, was saleable. (R. B. 

 Smyth, Mining and Mineral Statistics.) 



From the desultory and unsatisfactory manner in which the age 

 of the various Tertiary beds of Victoria has been arrived at, it is dim- 

 cult to fix in an exact manner that of the Lal-Lal beds. The flora, 

 so far as it has been investigated, appears to be of a Gymnospermous 

 character. Victoria at that time must have presented a much more 

 tropical appearance than it does now. So far as I am aware, none of 

 the Victorian indigenous trees has been noticed in this brown coal, 

 which appears to be almost entirely composed of the remains of Coni- 

 ferce. We can therefore arrive at its age by analogy only. 



The series of beds classed as Miocene by Mr. Selwyn. and so well 

 developed in the Maud district, are divided by my former colleague 

 (Mr. C. Wilkinson, who devoted much time to their investigation) 

 into two parts — an upper or marine series, and a lower, and 

 apparently freshwater series. The first or marine series contains, 

 according to Prof. M'Coy, a fauna of true Miocene age, and littoral 

 in character. The latter or supposed freshwater series is composed, 

 as Mr. Wilkinson has informed me, of sands, sandy clays, pipe-clay, 

 and rounded quartz and sandstone gravel, with thick masses of a 

 hard siliceous rock, or quartzite, interstratified with the foregoing 

 without any order or position. This siliceous rock, full of plants, is 

 traceable at intervals from Maud to Meredith, thence to Morrison's 

 Diggings on the Tea-Tree Creek, where it occurs accompanied by a 

 large amount of vegetable matter and thin irregular bands of lignite, 

 and forms the " false bottom " on which the younger auriferous drifts 

 are worked. At Morrison's Diggings a prospecting shaft was sunk 

 into this deposit to a depth of 400 feet, passing through gravels and 

 clays, containing numerous trees and plants. The following sections 

 taken near the above localities will give a fair illustration of the 

 foregoing remarks : — 



Section near Golden Rivers. 



1. Upper basalt rock, 25 to 30 feet. 



2. Gravel (Pliocene ?), 50 to 60 feet. 



3. Gravel (Miocene ?), " false bottom of miners," gravel, sand, clay, and 



boulders, with fossil leaves and wood, about 400 feet. 



4. Silurian (bed-rock). 



Section on the Moorcihool River, west of Steiglitz. 



1 . Upper basalt, 49 feet. 



2. Sandy grit (Pliocene ?), 10 to 15 feet. 



3. Upper coralline limestone, 13 feet. A 



4. Older basalt, enclosing bands of hard compact limestone, with fossils. & 



5. Sandy limestones, with fossils. S- § 



6. Rounded quartz, pebble drift, and hard siliceous conglomerate es 



rock, with fossil wood, &c, 90 feet. J ' 



7. Silurian (bed-rock). 



(Selwyn & Ulrich, I. c. p. 22.) 



This peculiar and characteristic conglomerate was traced by Mr. 

 Wilkinson and his party as far north as Bacchus Marsh, maintaining 



