18 
Geology op Sydney. 
There is nothing like it living now on earth. Even 
the natural order to which it belonged is quite extinct. 
This ungainly creature was a shovel-headed Sala- 
mander which pottered about like Fal staff in his old 
age, “ with much belly and little legs." But it 
measured ten or fourteen feet in length, and was 
as large as an ox in girth — a huge Batrachian, not 
separated very much from the frogs and newts. 
Transverse sections of its teeth show a wonderful 
labyrinthine pattern, from which these animals have 
been called Labyrinthodonts. 
In the slialos alongside are found very clear 
impressions of ferns that grew while the shale was 
being formed layer above layer. One of these ferns, 
Macro tsenuqrteris 1 (Fig. 4), was a stately plant, but 
nowhere can it be found living to-day. Here, then, 
we have evidence of animals and plants — and be it 
noted highly-organised animals and plants, differing 
completely from those now existing — having peopled 
the world before the forms around us came into 
existence. Wo have proof of amphibians wandering 
by ancient lakes, and leaving the impress of their 
huge bulk on the muddy flats. Highly-organised 
plants flourished on the edges of these lakes. There 
are ripple-marks on the shale a, Iso, left by the lapping 
of tiny waves. All this is buried down so deep that 
vast ages must have elapsed since these ferns grew, 
and since that groat reptile lived. This passing 
1 Gk. Macron, great ; tcenia, a ribbon ; pteron, a wing, a fern-frond 
