vin 
The remainder of the specimens described were obtained by Mr. C. S. 
Wilkinson, P.G.S., and myself, wlion examining, geologically, the Vegetable 
Creek District. The specimens were collected by a local miner, Mr. T. Smith, 
from a deposit of stream-tin which he was working near Emmaville, known 
as Fox and Fartridge’s Shallow Lead. A careful stratigraphical examin- 
ation of this bed convinced me that it belonged to the youngest of the Tertiary 
stanniferous leads developed in this neighbourhood. The earthy ironstone, 
in which the fossil impressions are preserved, has evidently been formed in 
water, after the manner of recent bog-iron ores, the iron having been derived 
from the basalts and laterites of early Tertiary lavas, through which the 
channel of Fox and Farlridge' s Shallow Lead Avas eroded. 
The evidence as to the doAA nAA'ard limit of the geological age of this 
insect-bearing ironstone is based partly on the associated fossil flora, and partly 
on the relation of this flora to an earlier flora, which Baron Constantin von 
Ettingshausen considers to belong to the Eocene Period. Some estimate of 
the extent of geological time AAdiich intervened betAveen these tAA^o floras may 
be formed from the following facts : — 
(1) In the first place, the AAdiite clays of Bose Valley, near Emmaville, 
Avhich contain the Eocene Elora, were buried under a sheet of basalt 
laA'a 100 feet thick. This sheet was subsequently eroded, j^robably 
entirely by fresh Avater, to a depth of not less than 40 feet. This 
second channel Avas then inundated by a second flow of lava, AAdiich 
consolidated into a sheet also 100 feet thick in places. A third 
channel was then excavated, also probably by the action of fresh 
Avater, through the second sheet of lava to a depth of from 30 to CO 
feet.* 
The shaly-ironstone, in AAdiich the fossil-insect impressions are noAv 
found, AA'as then formed at the bottom and sides of probably this 
third channel. There is, hoAA^ever, no certain proof that this iron- 
stone reposes on, and is consequently newer than, the second basalt 
sheet, though the general stratigraphical CAudence strongly favours 
this supposition. 
(2) As regards the upAA’ard limit of the geological age of the insect- 
bearing ironstone of Emmaville, it may be stated that the channel 
on the sides of which it rests is clearly part of the Tertiary drainage 
* Vide . — Section No. 2, C — D, Fox’s Shaft, at end of Geology of the Vegetable Creek Tin-mining Field, by 
T. AA’. Edgeworth David, B.A. 
