Mesozoic Rocks « 
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CHAPTER VII. 
Mesozoic Rocks — Relations betioeen Upper Palceozoic and 
Mesozoic Rocks of Victoria with rocks of New South 
Wales. The Bacchus Marsh Sandstones. Mesozoic Rocks 
of the Wannon , Cape Otway , Western Port, and South 
Gippsland. Coal-seams. Fossils. Conjectures as to 
Geoloyical History. 
Before proceeding to describe the Mesozoic rocks it is necessary 
to consider what geological changes took place previous to their 
formation, and subsequent to that of the Upper Devonian. 
With the exception of those beds of the Avon Sandstones which 
contain Lepidodcndron y and which have been shown to be very 
slightly, if at all, removed from Upper Devonian, no rocks have 
yet been found in Victoria that exhibit any kinship to the true 
Carboniferous rocks. No fossils have been found in the Grampian. 
Sandstones, and it is possible they may be the equivalents of the 
New South Wales Carboniferous rocks ; as before stated, they have 
been provisionally classed, on stratigraphical evidence, under the 
general term of Upper Palceozoic, along with the Avon Sand- 
stones and the Iguana Creek Upper Devonian beds* The geological 
position of the New South Wales coal measures, whether Palaeozoic 
or Mesozoic, was for a long time a disputed question amongst 
o-eologists, hut the weight of evidence is now almost entirely in 
favour of their being classed with the true Carboniferous (Upper 
Palaeozoic) series. 
Their equivalents have not been identified as surface rocks any- 
where in Victoria, and if they occur at all (still assuming the 
Grampian Sandstones as older than they), it must be beneath the 
Mesozoic or Tertiary deposits. 
There appears to be a general consensus of opinion that the Now 
South Wales Carboniferous rocks, whose beds contain the charac- 
teristic fossil plant-impression Glossopteris Brownian a, are younger 
than the so-called Upper Palceozoic, and older than the Mesozoic 
rocks of Victoria, whatever differences of opinion may exist as 
to the precise geological position of either of the three groups. 
Sir K. Daintree, in his work on the Geology of Queensland, 
points out that the rocks of the Northern Carboniferous (Paleo- 
zoic) area there contain Glossopteris (which is there, in his opinion, 
without doubt a purely Paleozoic form), but no Tceniopteris, 
whereas in the Mesozoic coal measures of Victoria, Richmond 
River, in New South Wales, and the southern coal-field of Queens- 
land, Tanioptcris is abundant, but no Glossopteris has ever been 
found. 
