176 
Mines and Mineral Statistics. 
formation of tlic llajmalial Hills of India, but Dr. Oldham, the 
skilful Director of tlic Indian Survey, declares that its officers 
have not “ heen cilJe to irace, among several thousand specimens^ a 
sinr/Je representative of the genus Glossopleris from ajiy ])art of 
these upper or EAJ^rAUAL heds'^ (See also his statements above.) 
If then, that series of beds be considered Slesozoic on other evi- 
dence, and if, as is sliown, Giossopteris belongs to a lower group 
or formation there is liere an enormous tliickness of fossililerous 
strata, in which the fossils (as before stated) gradually pass down 
to the Devonian. The opposition to this determination arose from 
a preconceived idea that strata bearing Glossopteris could not be 
PahTozoic, and therefore, that the u]i])er coal measures of New- 
castle had no riglit to bo considered older than Oolilic. Putnhilst 
these upper measures! produced a fish of undoubted Palaeozoic 
character (Urosthencs australis) ; Clcithro]e])is//m;??//f^/^^'f, Myrio- 
Icpis Chrrh-i^ and other Icthyolites, examined and determined by 
Nir P. do M. (I. Egerlon, Part, to be Pahnozoic, were found by 
me in ls()5 l.UOO feet bigher, and of tbese, photograjdis were 
exhibited at the Paris Exhibition of l^SGG-7, and ]ircviously at 
hlclbounie the specimens themselves; on whicli occasion Prolessor 
IVPCoy reported that their genei'al aspeet wa.s that f)f Triassie or 
Permian fish to which latter (Upper Paljcozoic), Sir P. Egerton 
refers them. Alothopteris lonchifica and Adiantites eximiusy both 
of wliich occur in our New South AVales beds, may be held to lia\'o 
as great weight as (EoBHO])tcris, seeiaigthey occur in au unbi’oken 
series of beds holding true LoAver Carbouiferoim marine fossils, 
and are, I believe, considered to be of Carboniferous age. 
After the evidence from Queensland, and the admission that the 
plant does not exist at all in Victoria (where all marine strata arc 
missing also), Glossop(( ris cannot he cited from that Colony to 
assist in proving New South Wales Newcastle coal to be Oolitic ; 
and there are sections on the Powen Piver (full 1,000 miles from 
Sydney), in which the whole history of the coal-beds may he read 
oh* without error. 
A conclusive opinion has been offered on this question by Dr. 
Julius Ilaast respecting the occurence of marine and plant beds 
of the same age as our.s in the ^Malvern Hill District, Canter- 
bury, New Zealand, who says, in October, 1871 (N.Z. Geological 
Puiwey Eeports on Geological Explorations, during 18/1 2), that 
on the west side of IMonnt Potts, Upper Eangitata, there ai’c 
“ different species of Spirifera ; besides them there arc species of 
Productus, Murebisonia, Enompbahus. Nucula, Orthis, and 
Ortlioceras. Most of these sliells, of Avhicli some broad winged 
Si>irifers are very numerous, are according to Professor APCoy, 
of Melbourne, identical with Australian fossils, and are of Lower 
Carboniferous or Upper Devonian age.” Otlier beds,"’ he adds, 
‘‘of equal importance occur in tlic Clent Hills, m wliicli I 
