COLONIAL GEOLOGT — NEW SOUTH WALES. 
75 
sierra.) Third. " Carboniferous beds," containing the workable coal- 
seams, with Glossopteris by far the most abundant fossil. In the lower 
portion of this series, four known coal-seams are interpolated with strata 
containing a fauna similar in character to that found in the Carboniferous 
Limestone of Europe. Fourth. " Lepidodendron beds," not associated 
with coal-seams as far as yet known. If this arrangement is correct, and 
my experience as a field geologist is entirely in its favour, it is of great 
practical value to us in Victoria in the search for workable coal-seams, and 
should cause us to direct our attention to the upper beds of the Avon se- 
ries, Gipps Land, where ^o. 4 is so well developed, and also to Cape Lip- 
trap, where Carboniferous Limestone is supposed to crop out, in the hope 
of finding the Glossopteris beds. It points unfavourably towards the Te- 
na?o])teris and Zamites bearing beds, which we have hitherto regarded as 
our coal-producers, but which, as yet, have yielded notliing better than 
the Cape Paterson seams. 4000 feet also of these same beds have been 
tested by boring in the Bellerine district and have yielded nothing ap- 
proaching a workable seam. 
In the collection of fossils forwarded by Mr. Clarke to Professor M'Coy, 
j at Cambridge, specimens had been collected from the tferee upper divisions 
I of the Carboniferous series of x^ew South Wales ; the subsequent division 
of the group had not then been worked out by that indefatigable geolo- 
I gist, and it is in this way, I believe, the mistake has arisen between Mr. 
1 Clarke and Professor M'Coy. Whether the fauna that overlies Eussell's 
coal-seams is most assimilated to the Palaeozoic or Lower Mesozoic forms 
of Europe, is a question on which I am not competent to form an opinion. 
When the question shall have been settled by palijeontological authorities, 
it seems to me that little will have been done for the physical geologist at 
the antipodes, who must trust to the order of superposition, rather than to 
the palajontolo^y, to work out the order of sequence, holding the opinion 
of Professor Huxley, that " there is no escape from the admission, that 
neither physical geology nor palaeontology possesses any method by which 
the absolute synchronism of two strata can be demonstrated. That the 
moment the geologist has to deal with large areas, or with completely se- 
parated deposits, then the mischief of confounding homotaxis, or simi- 
larity of arrangement which can be demonstrated, with synchrony or iden- 
tity of date, for which ttiere is not a shadow of proof, under the term of 
contemporaneity, becomes incalculable, and proves the constant source of 
gratuitous speculations." All the facts that we have to guide the field- 
geologist in Victoria in his search for Clarke's No. 3 Carboniferous beds 
(containing the workable seams of New South AVales) are these, — that 
they are very low down in the Carboniferous series ; that the lowest beds 
contain a fauna nearly allied to the Lower Carboniferous of Europe ; that 
Glossopteris is associated with all the coal-seams, and is the most common 
and characteristic fossil of the said No. 3. This peculiar fauna or flora 
has not yet been observed in V^ictoria. Leaving now this most interesting 
piece of country and coasting along to Moreton Bay, under the lighthouse 
on Moreton Island we have sandstones, with a slight inclination, appa- 
rently, of the Carboniferous series cropping from under the Tertiary (?) 
sand of which the island is composed. If this is really Carboniferous 
Sandstone, Moreton Island may shortly become more valuable than its 
outward appearance would lead one to suppose. The rocks on which Bris- 
bane stands may be referred to the Upper Silurian ; they have generally 
a north-easterly dip at high angles, are traversed by numerous quartz 
veins, and gold would surely be found, though perhaps not in workable 
quantity, in the gullies around the city. If not covered by the Carboni- 
