134 
Mines and Mineral Statistics. 
Spirifera beds, belong to the same series, near the base of which 
are coarse pebble conglomerates, containing pebbles of limestone, 
enclosing Crinoid stems, Petraia, Favosites polymorpha, and 
other corals, probably silurian. 
By actual measurement, I have ascertained the Devonian beds 
in the Bydal District, to be upwards of 10,000 feet thick. 
From 'Mount Lambie, proceeding in a north-westerly direction, 
we pass from the indurated breccia conglomerates into lower 
beds of highly inclined shales and sandstones, mth thick beds of 
Coraline limestone, probably upper silurian. Traversed by 
numerous quartz reefs, these rocks form the rough broken country 
to the westward, embracing the MitchelTs Creek diggings. 
The geology, therefore, of this interesting district accords with 
the observations of the Eev. *\V*. B. Clarke on the strata called 
by him Devonian or “ Passage hedsl^ the fossils of which, he 
remarks, have at at once a sihirian and a carboniferous aspect, 
being connected with the former by certain corals, and with the 
latter by the occurrence of Lepidodendron, Sigilaria, and other 
lower carboniferous plants. 
“ There is undoubtedly an apparent passage downw^ards from 
the marine fossils of the acknowledged lower carboniferous beds 
of New South Wales, to others which very much resemble the 
so-called Devonian beds of England, and a series of shells, corals, 
&c„ from the Murrumbidgee, which I submitted some years ago 
to Messrs. Salter and Lonsdale, through Sir E. I. Murchison, 
Bart., excited doubts as to their belonging to any but Silurian 
and Carboniferous deposits. Among these were Phanerotinus, 
Loxonema, Atrypa reticiiluris, Orthis resupinata, Murchisonia, 
Strophomena, and Spirifera of various species, some like Devonian. 
Loxonema is known to me as occurring in the lower marine beds 
of the Hunter Eiver basin. 
“ There appears to be an intermixture, aud such is the case 
with certain strata to the westward of Wellington, in which some 
of the fossils have the Carboniferous type, and others the 
Silurian.” 
Eeferring to the lower Paljcozoic rocks, the same author 
observes that “the greater mass of them appears to belong to 
Upper and Middle Silurian ; the mudstones of Tarralumla, with 
Encrinurus and Calymene ; the Coralline and Pentamerus beds of 
Deleget and Collalamine ; the Tentaculite and Halysites beds of 
Wellington and Cavan ; and the beds with Calymene, Encrinurus, 
Beyriehia, and others w‘ith Illoenus, Harpes, Bronteus ; Brachio- 
poda, including Strophodonta, and Eadiata, embracing star-fishes, 
point to the existence of at least the Upper Silurian formation on 
both flanks of the southern part of the Cordillera. There are also 
numerous corals included in the list given by me in the Southern 
Gold Eields (p. 285), which also confirm the same determination ; 
