Mines and Mineral Statistics, 
199 
Hood’s discovery of Crocodilian remains in New Zealand seems 
to establish in another way some possible connection long ago 
with distant regions. 
Crocodiles are yet common in Queensland. H the notion of a 
former conuectiou of New Zealand with the latter region is 
rejected, we have a connection of another kind maintained by^ 
some geologists, and Australia is considered as forming a rclick of 
a great Continent that formerly united what arc now Africa and 
India witli it. To this conclusion the existence ot the plant 
deposits (^discussed above) bears considerable testimony, and 
coupled with the wingless birds and crocodilian remains, an 
<;xtension of the inference so as to include New Zealand is not 
unjustifiable. (See Mr. ]31andtord’s paper “ On ^the Plant- 
bearing Scries of India, or tlie former existence of an Indo- 
Oceanic Continent,” read before the (Geological Society ol London, 
IGth December, 1871.) Incidentally, that paper allbrds J>y its 
deductions, as to Permian times, an additional argument tor the 
views I have expressed as to the epoch to which the Australian 
coal plants really belong being PahTOzoic. 
Looking to the C(dony ot New South "Wales, we find that in 
more than one instance the present river channels have deepened 
since the drift first began to crowd iiieir banks. 1 have traced 
one of tliese drift streams, sometimes at great lieiglits above the 
valleys, for more than 80 miles. In other places I Iiave found 
upon the surface, as Strzclecki did iu othem parts, miiiei-als 
(especially ores of copper, tin, and lead) which were at a great 
distance from their sources; and in two iiistauccs tbat laro 
mineral, Alolybdate of lead, of which no habitat has ever been 
yet found ; and not more than a year ago a lump ot Sulphiu’ct or 
autimoiiv, weighing three ])ounds, and exhibiting surlace evidence 
of its being a drifted substance, was disinterred from the super- 
ficial ironstone gravel of an unfrequented place iu the hush on 
one of the heights ot the north shore ot Port Jackson. 
In the great plains of the interior hones of various gigantic 
marsupials, fislies and reptiles, are found bedded in black muddy 
trappean soil ; and on Darling Downs, in Queensland nmvalve 
and bivalve shells are found in some cases attached to the bones, 
or deposited over them in a regular scries of layers, at intervals 
of several feet ; and of these shells some are yet living in the 
water-holes of the creeks. These facts arc generally known, but 
it was not till recently that the osseous relics have been IouikI in 
different creeks throughout the whole of the slopes and ])lains at 
the base of the Cordillera in Eastern Australia; m Victoria, in 
South Australia, and in North Australia also. Ot similar age are 
the accumulations of bones in caverns, as at AV elling on , a 
Boree ; near the head of the Colo Eiver ; at Tesseba, on the 
