Mr. C. Moore on a Plant- and Insect -bed on the Rocky River. 463 



in Australia, and then proceeded to notice the species which he had 

 obtained from that region. Fossils of Mesozoic type occur in 

 Western Australia, in the centre of the continent on Stuart's 

 route, and in Queensland; but the specimens have hitherto been 

 found in apparently drifted blocks, and nothing is known of the 

 bedded rocks from which they are derived. The author stated that 

 the Australian Mesozoic fossils agree, not only in genera, but also 

 in many cases in species, with British forms ; and he gave a list of 

 species from Western Australia, identical with British species from 

 the Middle and Upper Lias, the Inferior Oolite, and the Cornbrash. 

 Of the fossils from Queensland also, many are said to be identical 

 with, or very nearly allied to, British species ; but the author regards 

 the general type of the Queensland remains as referring them to 

 the Upper Oolite. A gigantic species of Crioceras is regarded by 

 the author as possibly indicative of the occurrence of Neocomian 

 deposits in Australia. The fossil evidence upon which Professor 

 M'Coy inferred the occurrence of the Muschelhalk in Australia 

 was said by the author to be nugatory, his supposed Myophoria 

 proving to be a Trigonia nearly allied to T. gibbosa of the Portland 

 Oolite, and his doubtful Orthoceras a small Serpula. The author 

 had found no indications of the existeDce of Triassic or Liassic 

 deposits in Queensland. 



The blocks from Western Australia referred by the author to the 

 Middle Lias contain Myacites liassianus (Quenst.), and are quite as 

 highly ferruginous as the English Marlstone. The species identified 

 by the author with British Oolitic species would indicate a range from 

 the Inferior Oolite to the Cornbrash ; the author suggests that the 

 species may have had a longer range in time in Australia than in 

 England, or that the subordinate divisions of the Oolite were not 

 clearly marked in the Australian Mesozoic deposits. He is inclined 

 to refer the fossils to the period of the Inferior Oolite. 



The author inferred, from the occurrence of these Mesozoic fos- 

 sils in drifted blocks at the two extremities of Australia, separated 

 by 38° of longitude, that an enormous denudation of rocks of 

 the secondary series has taken place over a considerable part of 

 Australia. 



2. " On a Plant- and Insect -bed on the Rocky River, New South 

 Wales." By Charles Moore, Esq., E.G.S. 



The organic remains noticed by the author were found by him in 

 a small block of chocolate -coloured, micaceous, laminated marl, ob- 

 tained from a bed about ten feet thick, at a depth of 100-110 feet, 

 in the auriferous drifts of Sydney flats, on the banks of the Rocky 

 River. The author found the leaves of two forms of Dicotyledonous 

 plants, fragments of a flat narrow leaf which he refers to the Coni- 

 ferae, a seed-vessel, and the impressions of several seeds. The 

 insect-remains consist principally of the elytra of Beetles, among 

 which Buprestidse appear to predominate. The vegetable-remains 

 seem to indicate that the deposit is of Tertiary age. 



