PART 3.] 
Blanford: Gondwd/ia Series in India. 
83 
Of course the first and most important question is, whether the age of the Australian 
coal-measures is definitely settled. It is not surprising that the evidence should he received 
with some distrust when it is found that ever since they were first described, one group of 
observers, headed by Professor McCoy, has persistently declared that the coal-beds are of 
jurassic age, whilst another group, comprising especially the Rev. Mr. Clarke, Professor 
Jukes, and Mr. Daintree, have contended that they are palasozoie. But there is an important 
difference between the two classes. The geologists have all examined the rocks in situ, and 
have ascertained that the plant-bearing beds are iuterstratified with marine hands containing 
Brachiopoda and other fossils admitted to be of carboniferous age by all palaeontologists. 
Of the paheo-botanists, McCoy, Morris, deZigno, Carruthers, Schiniper, and others, who have 
contended for the jurassic age of the Australian rooks, not one has ever examined the beds, 
and their opinions cannot consequently be of any weight, as opposed to the views of the 
geologists. Mr. Clarke has published two sections of coal-pits,* in which coal-seams and 
shales with Glossoptem, Phyllotheca. and NoeggeratMa (f Schizoneura) are shown to have 
been reached after passing through beds containing Spirifer, Fmestella, Conularia, Ortho- 
ceras, and other fossils of admitted carboniferous age. Mr. Daintree also has published a 
sectiont showing beds with Productus and Spirifer resting upon coal-seams with Glussop- 
teris. Unless the palaeo-botanists can prove that Clarke’s and Daintree's sections are 
incorrect, the question must be decided against the mesozoie age of the Glossoptcris beds. 
The succession of formations in the coal-fields of New South IV ales is said to be the 
following J:— 
]. t\ ianamatta beds ... i Gloawpterix mentioned in the lists of fossils. 
2. Hawsesbury beds ...) 1 
3. Upper eoal-seamg of Newcastle with Glossopteris, Yettebruriu, &q. 
4. Lower coal-seams of Newcastle with Glossopteria, Phyllothecu, Noeggerathia, (? Schizoneura) 
&c. With these and above the plant-bearing beds are bands with marine carboniferous 
fossils. 
5. Marine carboniferous rocks. 
6 . Lower carboniferous or Devonian beds with Lepidodondron nothum, Unger, &c. 
The Wianamatta and Hawkesbury beds, so far as is known, contain no plants common to 
any of the Indian rocks. They are now classed as older mesozoie. They are said to be 
connected with the beds beneath them, No. 3, by the presence of a plant, Pecupteris odon- 
iopteroides, Morris, in abundance in both, just as the Panchets in India are connected with 
the upper sub-division of the Damiidas by the occurrence in both of the same species of 
Schizoneura. In the same manner the floras of Nos. 3 and 4 appear to be connected by the 
presence of Glossopteris Browniana in both, although, from specimens which Dr. Peist- 
mantel has showed to me, there appears to he a considerable distinction in the flora. Until 
the Australian plant remains are subjected to a thorough revision, it will, perhaps, be unwise 
to consider too much as proved; bur so far as the evidence goes, it appears that all the Aus¬ 
tralian plant-bearing rocks of Australia are connected by species of plants passing in each case 
from one to the other, precisely as Dr. Peislmautel has shown to he the case with the r rooks of 
the lower Gondwana series in India, and it on the strength of the evidence we are justified 
in assigning the Panchets, Damiidas, and Talchirs to the Trias, because the two former 
contain triassic plants, and the Talchirs contain one plant, also found in the lower Damudas, 
* Transactions, Royal Society of Victoria, Vol. VI, 1861, and Remarks on the Sedimentary Formations of New 
South Wales, 3rd edition, 1875, p. 61; see also Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., XVII, 1861, p. 354. 
t Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., XXVIII, 1872, p. 286. 
X Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., XVII, 1861, pp. 358, 360; XXVIII, 1872, pp. 283, 286, 355, &c. Clarke, Sedimentary 
Formations of New South Wales, pp. 15, &c. 
