361 
stone Formation,” consisting of “ reddish or yellow micaceous sandstones, sometimes 
of great thichness, often occurs oyerlying the uppermost beds of the Upper Palmozoic 
mudstones, as at Tinder Box Bay, Iluon Eoad, and Waterworks Valley, near Hobart, 
with indistinct plant-impressions and silicified trunks of conifers. These sandstones 
apparently Ho conformably, and without stratigraphic break, upon the uppermost beds 
of the Upper Marino series. Their position is assigned, provisionally, at the base of 
the Mesozoic group of rocks of Tasmania.”* * * § 
The majority of the plants characteristic of the Ipswich Formation are met with, 
according to Mr. Johnston’s lists, in the Upper Coal Measures of Tasmania, and many 
others besides. It must be pointed out that Mr. Johnston obtained from the same 
locality (Lord’s Hill, Hewtown) Glossopferis (_&. morihunda, Johnston) and Tceniopicris 
(21 tasmanica, Johnston) .f 
If the Tasmanian Mesozoic Beds, as Mr. Johnston supposes, cover, without a 
break, “the whole period from the close of the Upper Paleozoic coal measures to the 
beginning of the Tertiary period,” the Ipswich Formation can only represent a small 
portion of the same time, as between the Ipswich Beds and the Tertiary, the whole 
period represented by the Bolling Downs and Desert Sandstone, and the uncon- 
formability between them, must intervene — and that was certainly of no insignificant 
duration. 
In New Zealand “The most valuable coal deposits occur in the Cretacco-tertiary 
formation — but always beneath such of the marine beds of the formation as are jmesent 
in the locality where the coal occurs. The coal-bearing beds always rest upon the 
basement rock of the district [slates and granites] marking a great unconformity and the 
closing of a long-persistent land area at the period to which they belong. J It is evident 
that this Coal Field can have nothing in common, so far as its age is concerned, with the 
Ipswich Coal Field. 
Older than the Cretaceo -Tertiary Coal Fields are the Buller Series, consisting 
of conglomerate and sandstones, with coal-seams, and the Amuri Series, consisting of 
green and grey incoherent sandstones, with hard concretions and large masses of 
silicified wood. “ This fonnation, which is confined to a few localities of limited extent, 
is very rich in fossils of the genera Selemnites and Trir/onia, with a few saurian bones 
and teeth of large chimmroid fishes.” § The Buller and Amuri Series are classed by the 
Geological Survey of New Zealand as Lower Greensand. 
Next in order come the Mataura, Putataka, and Flag Hill Series, classed by the 
Geological Survey as Jurassic. ’J'he Mataura series “ consists largely of estuarine beds, 
marine fossils being absent or rare. It consists of dark-coloured marls and fine-grained 
sandstones, and contains the fossil remains of a number of plants, of which eight species 
have been recognised. Amongst these are Oamplopteris, Qi/caditns, and JSahinostroIms, 
which connect them with the plant-beds of the ne.tt lower formation. Those found at 
Waikawa and Mataura Falls are especially interesting, from at least one species, 
dllaerotcetiiopieris lata, being identical with a plant found in the Eajmahal beds of India, 
which are considered to be of Liassic age The Mataura series, overlying the 
Futataka series, closes the old secondary sequence at Kawhia, in the Auckland District, 
and the same plants are foiind in the Clent Hills plant-beds, and from the natural sections. 
* Systematic Account of the Geology of Tasmania, p. Iti). By Roht. M. Johnston, F.L.S., &c. 
Hobart : by Authority : 1888. 
t Catalogue and Guide to the Geologie.al Exhibits, New Zealand Court, Indian and Colonial Exhibition, 
P. 59. By Sir James Hector, Director of the Geological Survey. Wellington : by Authority: 188h. 
§ Op. cit,, p. 63. 
