406 
At 212 feet. — Clay shales witli shells and. a limestone nodule. 
* At 224 feet. — Grey fine-grained sandstone with Ancyloceras Flindersi, McCoy. 
„ 232 feet. — Clay shales. 
„ 235 feet. — Clay shales with shells. 
* At 238 feet. — Clay shales with Inoceramus Crispii, Mantell ?, Selemnites Canliami, 
Tate, and Ancyloceras Flindersi, McCoy. 
* At 244 feet. — Clay shales with Inoceramus Crispii, Mantell ?, Amelia Imglien- 
denensis, Eth., Nucida quadrata, Eth., and Nucula, sp. ind. 
* At 284 feet. — Limestone nodule with Cr ioceras, sp. ind, 
* At 290 feet. — Clay shale with Ammonites Flindersi, McCoy. 
The fossils to which an asterisk (*) is attached were presented to the Geological 
Survey Museum by Mr. Sharwood, and identified by my Colleague. 
The reluctance to admit that the Wollumbilla fossils had really been found 
in situ, and the refusal to take into consideration Mr. N. Taylor’s Walsh fossils, on the 
ground that they occurred in drifted boulders (whereas they occurred in concretionary 
nodules), resulted naturally enough from the presence of an assemblage of fossils such 
as in Europe could not have occurred in any one formation. It is remarkable that 
almost every Palroontologist who has worked hitherto on Queensland materials has come 
to the conclusion that fossils from different localities have been mixed up, and this 
explanation has appeared to be specially necessary in the case of fossils from the 
Rolling Downs. On the other hand, my own explorations have satisfied me that 
Queensland fossils are not more liable to this kind of accident than those of other 
countries ; that the mixiug-up which has caused so much annoyance to Paheontologists 
has been perpetrated by Nature herself ; that we have a continuous series of beds of 
enormous thickness, in which, however, from the scarcity of sections, it would be 
imjmssible to map out “ horizons” ; and that the fossils of the Rolling Downs, from 
the Gulf to the New South Wales Boundary,* must be treated as a whole. Shading 
gradually upwards from the plant-bearing Ipswich Beds, the Rolling Downs Formation 
contains a marine (and occasionally freshwater) fauna, representing the migration of 
many species which in Europe date from Rhsetic to Cretaceous, but which cannot bo 
quoted as arguing a strict contemporaneity of life. 
Although mainly a marine deposit, plant-beds and coal-seams, indicating fresh 
water or terrestrial conditions, are by no means rare. At one time I indulged the hope 
of being able to separate a Lower, or Marine, from an Upper, or Freshwater Series,t 
but later experience has convinced me that this is impracticable, plant-beds and coal- 
seams being met with at different horizons, and not being identifiable over large areas. 
It may be said that I have not myself seen a single plant in the Rolling Downs in 
determinable condition, the shales on which they are imj)rinted crumbling rapidly on 
exposure. The lion. A.. C. Gregory, however, mentionsj that many well-preserved speci- 
mens of ferns, including Tceniopteris and Pecopteris, were found in an ironstone bod in 
Bungee worgorai Creek, ten miles above the main Western Road; and a specimen 
labelled Sphenopteris, from the Bulloo River, in the south-western corner of the Colony, 
is included in the collections of the Queensland Museum, Brisbane. 
In addition to the localities already enumerated, coal has been found in the 
Rolling Downs Formation at Malta, east of Tambo (three seams in thirty-six feet, one 
seam three and a-half feet thick) ; at the head of Bungeeworgorai Creek, north-east of 
Mitchell (a thick seam) ; and at Dulbydilla, on the Western Railway. 
* And those from the Lake Eyre Basin in South Australia. See “ Age of the Mesozoic Rocks of 
the Lake Eyre Basin.” By Prof. R. Tate, Proc. Austr. Assoc. Adv. Sci. (1888), i., p. 228. 
t Transcontinental Railway Report, by R.L. J. Brisbane : by Authority : 1885. 
+ Report on the Search for Coal between Dalby and Roma. Brisbane : by Authority : 1879. 
