Mines and Mineral Statistics. i77 
gatliered a rieli harvest of fossil ferns, mostly Pecopteris, 
Tsenioptei'is, and Camptopteris” (this, ho-wever, is not found in 
New South Wales) “ Avhich, according to Professor M‘Coy, are of 
Jurassic age identical with beds belonging to the New South 
Wales Coal Fields, and althougli T believe this Clent Hill series 
to be somewhat younger than the Spirifera beds, I demurred to 
this definition, owing to the fact that the position of the strata 
and the c'haracter of the rocks of which they are composed have 
quite a Paloeozoio facies.” 
“Since then it has been shown, and as I think with conclusive 
evidence, that both fossilifcrous strata, the Spirifera and Pecop- 
teris beds occuri'ing together in the New South AVales Coaldields, 
are of the same age, and alternate with each other. The occur- 
rence of Tamiopteris, wliich hitherto hns been considered only of 
Secondary age,* seems to speak against a Palazoic origin ; however, 
I may point out that, the same objection was made to the 
Glossopteris in Australia, but which has by overwhelming evidence 
been shown to be also of Palreozoic age. I do not thiiik that the 
fragment of a leaf, liowever distinct, can unsettle all that strati- 
graphical geology has proved to be correct.” (p. G-7.) 
Some recent researches made by me, with a view to the con- 
sidci'ation of this question of age, render it far from improbable 
that a series of beds has been swept off tlie coal measures by 
denudation, in which mai'ine beds may have overlain the now 
existing strata, just as in a lower horizon they do still at Stony 
Creek, Anvil Creek, Mount AVingen, and in other localities. The 
facts that the present coal seams range in elevation along the 
const, from below the sea, to between 200 and 300 feet only above 
it, and tliat to the westward they reach an elevafion of upwards of 
3,000 feet, still pre.sorving the same plants as below, and with an 
equal almost horizontal level (except in cases where local derange- 
ment has occurred from special elevating forces), and moreover, 
that similar seams occur at various other elevations between those 
mentioned, induce me to consider it possible that there has been 
a sinking along the coast line, allowing denudation to operate. 
At present this hint may not be worth much, but hereafter 
more may come out of it. I ought also to add that between the 
Hawkesbury rocks and the coal there is often a series of beds 
belonging to the coal measures in which marine Palmozoic fossils 
are stated to have been found. 
In the sections published some years ago by Mr. J. Mackenzie 
and myself, and in subsequent sections by the former, as given in bis 
lieport to Government, it will be seen that the number and thick- 
ness of the seams vary considerably in different localities. The 
former circumstance may be accounted for by the fact that the 
*Schiraper says (to7n. 1, p. 600j of tlie g«ntis Ta>niopt<*ris — “ Fougerea paraissent 
€tre propres au Ui'i'din houiller mp(Tieur et au pcnnierii^^ «.e., they arc Palyeozoic. 
