ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 37 



Devonian life to one another, and their bearing on the correlation 

 of the rocks containing them with those of distant countries opens 

 even a wider field of enquiry than we found presented to us by 

 the Silurian. 



On approaching the Carboniferous we meet with a much more 

 easily correlated group of organic remains, although many points 

 in connection with their relation to similar groups abroad require 

 elucidation. Both in New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland, 

 there is a well marked flora of Lower Carboniferous age, by some 

 considered as Upper Devonian. This is found in the neighbourhood 

 of Stroud in the first named Colony, characteristic of the Avon 

 Sandstones in the second, and the Drummond Range and other 

 localities in the last. All three have plants in common, but the 

 precise relation of this flora to the higher marine Carboniferous 

 beds is not at present apparent. The sequence in New South 

 Wales appears to be the most satisfactory, and it is probably here 

 that the question will be solved. The relation of the Upper and 

 Lower Marine Series is a very close one, the fossils apparently 

 having a mixed Carboniferous and Permian facies, and there is 

 much to be said in favour of referring to these under the one 

 general term of Permo-Carbonif erous. The Upper and Lower Coal 

 Measures, alternating with the two sets of marine beds, are 

 peculiar from the absence of any portion of their fauna, and in 

 fact by the general, although not absolute absence of animal 

 remains. The flora of the New South Wales Coal Measures is of 

 particular interest from the great preponderance of the genus 

 Glossopteris, and in working out the life history of this plant, it 

 becomes necessary to institute a close comparison with the coal- 

 bearing rocks of South Africa and India. This has to a large 

 extent been accomplished by Dr. Ottokar Feistmantel, but much still 

 remains to be done. Without doubt, the greatest palseontological 

 service which could be rendered to the Geology of New South 

 Wales would be a complete elucidation of the relations of the 

 various divisions of her Carboniferous System one to the other, 

 and to those of other countries ; the physical conditions under 



