2 
to the exertions and liberality of the late Mr. Clarke we are indebted for the 
appearance of this great advance in the Science of Palccontology in N. S. 
Wales. Most of the Strzelcckian fossils described by Morris and Lonsdale 
are now in the Natural History Mnseiim, London; the original collection 
made by Mr. Clarke, and described by M‘Coy, is deposited in the "Wood- 
wardian Museum, Cambridge, England ; Lana’s gatherings, jn’ociired during 
the Wilkes’ Expedition, were placed in the Smithsonian Institution, 
M ashiugton, and subsequently huruE some years ago ; whilst the most com- 
plete series of the whole, the second Clarke Collection, was, as is well known, 
destroyed in the Garden Palace tire in Sydney, in 1882. Erom this it will he 
seen that we do not possess in N. S. Mhiles, nor in Australia for the matter of 
that, either of the old Collections, containing the original types on which the 
larger portion of our Palaeozoic Paheontological nomenclature depends. This 
is most unfortunate, more especially as regards the series described by 
Lc Koninck, for so many of the species were diagnosed on single, and in some 
cases imperfect examples, that it is now very difficult to recognize them. 
Pcsidcs the collections here particularised, there have been, of course, from 
time to time, small sets of fossils described in occasional communications to 
learned Societies, which need not he further referred to at present ; hut l)efore 
closing this Introduction, it may he well^to mention the few fossils described 
by J. de Carle Sowerhy in IMitchell’s “ Three Expeditions into the Interior of 
Eastern Australia,”" and collected l)y that Explorer at the outset of his Eirst 
Expedition in the Hunter P^iver District. These arc now deposited in the 
cabinets of the Geological Society of London. 
Erom the above circumstances, it is intended, in this and succeeding 
Parts, to describe only those species which come directly under the Author’s 
notice as a portion of the Departmental Collection in the Mining and 
Geological IMuseum, or as contributed by private Collectors in illustration of 
the subject, leaving all others described by previous Writers, and not 
represented, to testify for themselves. M^ith the view of doing every justice 
to the series described by Prof, de Koninck, a translation of his “ Eecherches,” 
as literal as possible, will shortly be published as one of the Memoirs of the 
Geological Survey. 
The general geological subdivisions of the Carboniferous and Permo- 
Carboniferous rocks of N. S. TVales, as at present understood by the Geological 
Survey, are as follows : — 
' I was so informed by Prof. J. U. Dana. 
2 Three Pixpeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, with Descriptions of the recently-exploiyd 
Region of Australia Felix and the present Colony of New South Wales, I, x>. 15. (- vols., SVo., London, 1838.) 
