Madagascar and New South Wales . 481 
trap rocks, and of sandstones which appear to have been immediately 
derivative from the primitive rocks ; whilst neither of them contain 
any remains of animals or vegetables. It appears, however, from 
specimens imported by Mr. Brown, that there is a strong analogy 
between the coal formation of the Hunter’s River and River 
Hawkesbury in New South Wales, and that of England, which 
well deserves to be accurately investigated. That illustrious botanist, 
during his late scientific voyage with Capt. Flinders, collected spe- 
cimens from Kingston in the district of Newcastle, on the Hunter’s 
River, of the shale that accompanies this coal, which like the Eng- 
lish coal shale, is loaded with impressions of the leaves of ferns. 
From the south side of the Table Mountain, near Hobart’s town, Van 
Diemen’s Land, he has also brought home specimens of stratified chert 
rock, not unlike that which accompanies the mountain limestone of 
Derbyshire, full of beautifully preserved shells and casts of terebra- 
tulites, flustra, milleporas, and other organic remains, which are 
nearly if not quite identical with those of the mountain limestone 
of England and Ireland ; among them is a spirifer, with its hinge 
distinctly preserved in delicate calcedony. 
It is satisfactory to find, on comparing rocks from such remote 
parts of the southern hemisphere with those of Europe, that none 
of them afford any varieties that may not be referred to species that 
occur also on this side of the equator, and that as far as they go, 
they lead us towards a conclusion, that there is not only an identity 
in the older formations of rocks that constitute the earth’s surface, 
but also a strong resemblance in the leading features of many of 
the secondary strata that follow and repose upon them. 
3 p 2 
