PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 19 



strata analogous to the barren sandstone and conglomerates 

 of the Clarence Goal Basin, which in that region were 

 succeeded by sandstone and shales containing Alethopteris 

 and Tceniopteris Daintreei. These beds must be regarded 

 as the equivalents of the Walloon Series of Queensland, and 

 possibly also of the upper members of the Ipswich form- 

 ation. To this later series we can safely assign a Jurassic 

 age, and the general appearance of the flora is of the cos- 

 mopolitan type. This is confirmatory, to a great extent, 

 of the opinions that have been expressed from time to time, 

 that in the central portion of Eastern Australia there is a 

 direct sequence in sedimentation from Permo-Carboniferous 

 to Cretaceous time* This condition has led to the mingling 

 of faunas and floras which undoubtedly has confused strati- 

 graphers, not only in Australia, but in Europe. It will be 

 remembered that in the discussion of Daintree's paper 

 already referred to in the criticism of the list of fossils 

 published by Etheridge, it was considered by the leading 

 geologists of England that his Cretaceous fossils had been 

 hopelessly mixed, as the assemblage showed analogies to 

 forms that in Europe might occur individually in Jurassic, 

 Oolite, Kimmeridgian, Gault, or Chalk. 



This is also borne out by the case of the fossil fish occur- 

 ring in the Wianamatta shales of St. Peters, near Sydney, 

 which Smith Woodward regarded as coming from two 

 separate horizons of Carboniferous or Permian and Triassic 

 respectively. These points lead to the establishment of the 

 fact that in this region the European standard of palseonto- 

 logical classification cannot be followed. 



Further support of this is brought forward by Chilton's 

 description of crustacian remains from the Wianamatta. 

 These forms of Anaspids show close resemblance to the 

 Carboniferous type of Europe and America, furnishing 

 another instance of the survival in Australia of Palaeozoic 

 forms into the Mesozoic. 



