Vol. 50.] GEOLOGY OF BATHITEST (*TEW SOUTH WALES). 115 



Australasian colonies, 1 also mentions it as occurring in various parts 

 of New South Wales and Queensland. In Victoria a species of 

 Lepidodendron occurs which has been described by Prof. M'Coy as 

 L. australe 2 It is now contended by Mr. R. Etheridge, Jun., and 

 others that the true L. noihum does not occur in the colonies at all, 

 but that the specimens so described should be classed as L. australe. 

 The question is ably discussed by Mr. Etheridge in a paper 

 published in 1891. 3 The rocks in Victoria containing L. australe 

 have been provisionally classed as Lower Carboniferous, and 

 Mr. Etheridge suggested in bis paper that the beds in New 

 South Wales in which the same fossil occurred should be classed 

 as newer than Devonian. The question of the occurrence, or 

 otherwise, of the fossil in the Brachiopod Sandstones, generally 

 admitted to be Devonian, became therefore of some importance. 

 It has been taken up by Prof. David, of Sydney University, and 

 Mr. E. F. Pittman, A.R.S.M., Government Geologist, N.S.W., who 

 worked together at Mr. Wilkinson's old section at Rydal ; and by 

 the writer, working at Glanmire, near Bathurst. At both localities 

 specimens of Lepidodendron have been found associated with the 

 Devonian brachiopoda ; one of those obtained by the writer being 

 actually attached to a cast of Spirifer disjunctus. Some other 

 vegetable remains were found at the same place, but not sufficiently 

 definite for classification. It appears therefore to be proved that 

 Lepidodendron is Devonian in New South Wales, unless it can be 

 shown that the Brachiopod Sandstones are Carboniferous. 



With the exception of the Devonian rocks above described, there 

 are apparently no rocks of that age within a radius of at least 

 20 miles, but the Brachiopod Sandstones are well known in many 

 other parts of the colony. Nearly all the Devonian fossils occur 

 as casts, but better-preserved specimens are found in the more 

 shaly beds. 



5. Rocks newei 1 than the Devonian. 



As already mentioned, the Devonian rocks are in places traversed 

 by what appear to be dykes of felstone similar to some of those 

 occurring in the Silurian. They are probably not much younger 

 than the rocks which they traverse. 



With the exception of these, no rocks younger than the Devonian 

 are known in the district, until we come to the Tertiary drifts and 

 the superincumbent basalt. Near Rydal, and at Lithgow, still 

 farther east, the Devonian beds are overlain by Carboniferous rocks. 

 About Lithgow one of the principal coal-fields of the colony is 



1 ' Geological and Pakeontological Relations of the Coal- and Plant-bearing 

 Beds of Palaeozoic and Mesozoic Ag^ in Eastern Australia and Tasmania,' by 

 Ottokar Feistmantel, M.D., Mem. Geol. Surv. N.S.W., 1890, Department of 

 Mines, Sydney. 



2 Prodr. Pal. Vict. 1874, dec. i. pi. ix. 



3 'Lepidodendron australe, M'Coy — Its Synonyms and Range in Eastern 

 Australia.' Records Geol. Surv. N.S.W. vol. ii. pt. iii. pp. 119-133. 



