Art. X. On some Fossil Plants found near Hobart Town and 
Launceston. By Joseph Milligan, Esq. 
[The following- paper was read before the Tasmanian Society, on 
17th June, 1846, when an extensive suite of specimens was 
exhibited by Mr. Milligan, to illustrate his opinions as to their 
characters and affinities. It has been deemed preferable to 
give Mr. Milligan’s views in full, rather than an abridgment 
of them in the minutes of the proceedings.— Ed. Tasmanian 
Journal.] 
The specimens of fossil vegetation submitted for inspection, and 
which are the subject of the following, remarks, are from three 
different formations, namely— 
1. A fresh water limestone, 
2. A carboniferous sandstone and shale, and 
3. A brown argillaceous claystone rock, disrupted and re¬ 
imbedded. 
First. The fresh water limestone occurs in the suburbs of Hobart 
Town, between Elizabeth-street and “ Knocklofty” Range. It 
is regulaily quarried and burnt into lime. The quarrymen state 
that the depth of the deposit is 30 to 40 feet. 
It forms the rounded northern summit of a greenstone hill, a 
spur from Knocklofty, and is covered with a bed of clayey loam, 
which encloses boulders of greenstone of various size. These 
have undergone decomposition to a greater or less extent. The 
larger masses, scaling off in concentric layers, retain within the 
semi-crystalline structure, and something of the hardness, but not 
the tenacity, characteristic of greenstone. The smaller boulders 
have pretty generally passed into a substance soft enough to be 
cut with a knife, and having much the aspect and character of 
steatite. 
These dislocated masses of greenstone occur in and upon the 
soil and over the superficial rock formations throughout the dis¬ 
trict, and may therefore be regarded as the result of the last great 
upheaving force which disturbed the strata of the colony, and 
which probably at same time raised the limestone deposit nearly 
to its present elevation. 
There occurs, filling the interstices between these greenstone 
boulders, a white semi-crystallised and sometimes chalkv carbonate 
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