Carboniferous Glaciation, Etc .— White. 311 
ing the series of Victorian mesozoic strata, are found the Bel- 
larine beds. These are of great thickness and contain unim¬ 
portant coal seams. Six species of plants of mesozoic age 
have been described by McCoy, and on these, the only pale¬ 
ontological evidence furnished, Feistmantel has based his 
conclusions, in correlating them with the Clarence River series 
of New South Wales, as upper Trias or lowest Jurassic. 
QUEENSLAND. 
The discovery of traces of glacial action northward 
into Queensland, first made known by R. L. Jack in 1879, 1 
has since been corroborated by several other geologists. 
The evidences of glacial phenomena were found in the 
older of the Queensland coals, and chiefly as exposed in the 
Bowen River coal-field. Here, again, we have Carboniferous 
types of marine fossils along with remains of Glossopteris , 
Schizopteris, and Pecopteris. A younger flora is found in 
the upper coals which Feistmantel correlates with the Clar¬ 
ence river series. 
GENERAL. 
From the foregoing roughly-outlined data, which I have 
sought to condense as much as possible, it appears that an 
area extending from 40° south lat. to 35° north, and from 20° 
east of Greenwich to 155° east, and including more than one 
fourth of the earth’s surface, is characterized by great table 
lands of enormous thickness, resting, usually nearly horizon¬ 
tally, on folded Devonian and older rocks, or in places con¬ 
formably on rocks of lower Carboniferous age, and that these 
immense terranes, which present the strongest resemblance to 
one another both paleontologically and lithologically are in 
turn characterized in their basal members by abundant evi¬ 
dence of glacial action. Indeed, notwithstanding the reluc¬ 
tance of the scientific world to accept the startling theory of 
a glacial epoch in later paleozoic or earliest mesozoic time, 
the idea has gained steadily in credence since 1872, until at 
last it is supported, not only officially but individually, by 
nearly every geologist who has specially examined the evi¬ 
dence or studied in the field in India, Australia, or Africa. As 
the knowledge of the geology of these great fields has in¬ 
creased, the evidence has not only grown so strong as to force 
1 Report on the Bowen River coal-field, Brisbane, 1879, folio, 44 pp., 
map. 
