182 
Mines and ■ Mineral Statistics, 
alike in some respects in difFerent epochs, without confusion, 
when also the position of the strata is what is called “ con- 
formable.” 
It is no logical argument to say that, because there may be 
great deposits of coal in China or America or G-rcat Britain, 
that are not what are called Carhoniferous, therefore, there ought 
to be such in Victoria, when we all know they do not exist there, 
or that the same citations would bear out the assertion, that the 
IS’cw South Wales workable seams are also Secondary ; nor cau 
the adroit alteration of the expression Oolitic into Mesozoic, 
prevent our considering that the general term was ado])ted for 
the more specific one, because those who used it so were aware 
that they had made some kind of mistake, and did not like to 
own it. 
Kow, there are no Icnoim Oolitic marine fossils in all N"ew 
South Wales ; and tlie Oolitic or Jurassic fossils are of such extent 
and variety in all countries, wherever the regions in which they 
occur have been explored, that to put the idcjitity of such forma- 
tions on a plants, that may after all have no strict claim to 
decide in the cause, would appear to me a very questionable pro- 
ceeding. 
If, for instance, the fishes found by me in the G-ib Tunnel 
Eangc, near Nattai, are of a “ Triassic or Permian” facies, 
according to M‘Coy, and are Permian according to Egerton and 
Dana, why should the beds in wliich they occur be set down as 
Oolitic or Jurassic, instead of “ Triaesic or Permian”? Sir P. 
Elgorton lias shown that, with Paheonaicus, occur other genera, 
closely related to Pygoptcrus, Acrolepis, and Platysomus, all 
either Upper Carboniferous or Permian genera in other parts of 
the world. 
Then again, why should the Urosthenea of Dana, from a 
prominent part of the XcAvcastlc local beds be left out of the 
same category ? 
Is not the view that all these beds, ranging in succession, one 
over the other, and being all, as I believe, of fresh water origin 
(for the TIawkesbury rocks contain plants, but no animal remains 
except fishes), have a common relationship, and yet with no pretext 
for a Jurassic origin on the score of animal co-existences of that 
era ? When we consider that tlie fishes alluded to occur at different 
altitudes, and are all hetorocercal G-anoids, we must conclude that 
there have been physical disruptions, and that there are gaps in the 
succession occasioned by following denudation, or that there have 
been repetitions of strata now no longer traceable. Eor instance, 
the fish beds are at Cockatoo Island, Ifi feet below the sea ; at 
Sydney, less than 100 feet above it ; 100 feet at Paramatta ; 250 
feet above it at Campbelltown ; 7S0 feet above at Eedbank, near 
Picton ; 1,100 feet on Eazorbaek; 2,300 feet at the Gib-Tunnel ; 
