CHAPTER XXIV. 
THE ORGANIC REMAINS OF THE TRIAS-JURA SYSTEM, 
With Desceiptions op the Species occtjeeihg in the Bhekum Eoemation 
(Lowee Teias-Jhea). 
In this System are comprised such fossiliferous strata as lie, so far as their 
position can he ascertained, between those horizons representing the uppermost Fresh- 
water Coal Measures of the Bowen River Coal Field, and the Rolling Downs Formation. 
This Series is of the utmost importance, because it contains the chief workable 
coal-seams in Queensland, or at least the principal seams at present worked. The 
organic remains are principally those of plants, with a strong Mesozoic facies, and 
oscillating, in all probability, between the Trias and Upper Oolite in age. They have 
been studied by Messrs. Carruthers and Feistmantel, and the late Rev. J. E. Tenison 
Woods. The last named, in his “ Fossil Flora of the Coal Deposits of Australia,” 
has endeavoured to assign many of these plants to horizons corresponding with those of 
their nearest allies of Europe and elsewhere, and in this way has accounted for the 
presence in Queensland of the Trias ? Rhaetic or Lower Lias, Upper Lias, and Jurassic. 
Rut our knowledge of these plant beds is too young at present for such minute sub- 
division, and we know far too little of the association of the sjjecies one with the other, 
S'Ud the similar relation of their respective matrices, to assign minute geological horizons, 
on the chance of a mere guess, or hasty generalisation, turning out correct. 
The principal deposits yielding Mesozoic plants in Queensland are : — 
Ipswich Coah Meashees at — 
Redbank, near Mount Esk, Brisbane River. 
Cressbrook and Colinton, Brisbane River. 
Bundanba Colliery, Ipsivdch. 
• Tivoli Colliery, Ipswich. 
Walloon Colliery, Ipswich. 
Rosewood (Southern and “Western Railway). 
Peak Mountain, near Fassifern, twenty miles from Ipswich. 
Talgai, near Warwick. 
Darling Downs, near Toowoomba. 
Stewart’s Creek, near Stanwell. 
Wycarbah (Rosewood), near Rockhampton. 
Bueehm Coal Meashees — 
Burnett River Beds. 
, The Organic Remains from Stewart’s Creek and Wycarbah are grouped with those 
the Ipswich Formation. 
J I? *' ^S'rious Deposits of Fossil Plants in Queensland,”* the Rev. 
fj," Tenison Woods gives the locality of Peak Mountain, near Fassifern, and quotes 
om it plants like Rhacopteris. Strange to say, I do not find this place mentioned in 
more extended Memoir on the Coal Plants. lie remarks that if the plants found 
,, belong to Rhacopteris their occurrence “ would indicate a much lower horizon 
fin any beds hitherto found in Queensland.” On looking over Mr. Wood’s Collection, 
* Proc. Linn. Soo. N. S. Wales, vii., Pt. 1, pp. 95-98. 
