Mines and Mineral Statistics. 
167 
by the retort tliat if is to be a guide in detennining 
geological age there is an end of any certainty for such persons 
as affect to u]>]iold their own theories by rcfej’once to peculiar 
plants ; and this Professor BPCoy himself does in relation to a 
Scarborough plant by which he affects to guide his Oolitic deter- 
mination to the exclusion of Grlossopteris audits usual associates. 
Ecspecting Pala^ouiscus, one of the Kew South AVales fishes, 
a passage translated from j^gassiz, whose decision ought to be 
satisfactoiy, will not be out of place, considering that it meets 
the objection on tlie form of the caudal fin. He says, — “ I know 
ten species of this genus, which appear to be limited to coal 
measures aud tbe Zechstein. It might not, however, be impossible 
to discover traces in the Gres htgnrre;^ the Muschelkalk, and the 
Keuper” {i c., in the Trias) ; “but thatwliich I bclievel amabloto 
affirm is, that it docs not ascend to the Jurassic format lons^ of which 
the numerous representatives of the order of Ganoids have the tail 
regular, and never prolonged in a long point forming the upper 
lobe of the caudal, as takes place coiistantly in the genera of the 
earlier formations. I do not understand what were the intentions 
of Nature which have produced these singular diilercnccs, but it 
is certain that they exist, and it would be to misunderstand our 
duty to ignore them, or to attribute less importance to so general 
aud constant a fact.” {Bccherclies snr les Boissons fossihs, tom. 1, 
]). 43.) To this may be added, that the generally of the fishes, 
which are all heterocercal in New South Whales, arc found more 
thau 1,000 feet geologically liigher than our workable coal, Avhich 
those who denounce “ vulgar errors” condemn to a mere Jurassic 
existence. 
The existence of Pal<Tozoic strata of Carboniferous age in 
some parts of Victoria is, as 1 believe, a fair assumption of the 
Cape Paterson Reporters, though at present they cannot prove 
their position by fossiliferous evidence ; but tlie denial of that 
existence would hand over their nholo coal territory to a forma- 
tiou or formations, to prove the age of which they liave uo more 
marine evidence than they liave respecting a Carboniferous era. 
They have never yet seen a single marine fossil bed in all Victoria 
to justify even their adopted view of their coal belonging to ihe 
Oolitic age, which is elsewhere multitudinously fertile in marine 
fossils, and this, uo doubt, is “ peculiar.” Tlie Reporters on the 
Western Port Coal Infields notify carefully, that “ it should be 
distinctly understood that our oinnion respecting the age of the 
New South AVales coal measures is hased entirely on the collection 
of rocks, fossils, and coals forwarded to us by the late IMr. Keene, 
* He afterwards names P. catopteriis as belonging to tins sandstone. Ifc 
was, however, only found in one spot, only “a few square feet” in extent, in 
the county of Tyrone. {Vortloclcy Geology of Londonderry, Tyrone, and Fer- 
managh, p. 468.) 
