462 
Carboniferous Formation of 
Irish specimens, and nine more are so closely allied that it has been 
found impossible to detect any difference of character, but which, 
either from imperfect preservation or want of sufficient specimens 
to display all the characters, have not been specifically identified.” 
Thus, then, Mr. M’Coy’s examination confirms the singular 
fact, that the rocks of Wollongong and Black Head, Harper’s 
Hill, Raymond Terrace, Dunvegan on the Paterson, Glendon, 
&c., are of the exact geological age of the lowest part of the 
mountain limestone of Europe; and that, at that period, this 
part of what is now the Pacific Ocean swarmed with the identical 
species which also occupied the waters of those parts of the sea 
now called the Atlantic and German Oceans, in which the carbo¬ 
niferous formations of Britain and Ireland were deposited. 
So far, then, the geological examination of New South Wales 
has been satisfactory. 
But there are some points connected with the Australian coal 
fields, which, though equally curious, are not so easily disposed 
of: and these require a more particular investigation. 
The botanical casts in the coal beds of New South Wales, do 
not seem to justify the conclusion drawn by Mr. M’Coy, Mr. 
Bunbury, and Dr. Hooker, from the fossils supposed by those gen¬ 
tlemen to be invariably below the coal beds. They argue, that 
as the fossil plants have a nearer resemblance to those of the 
supposed coal fields of India, and of the true oolitic coal fields of 
Europe, therefore, though the zoological fossils lead to the inference 
above mentioned, the fossil flora seems to imply, that a “ wide 
geological interval occurred between the consolidation of the fos- 
siliferous beds which underlie the coal, and the deposition of the 
coal measures themselves; and that there is no real connexion 
between them, but that they belong to widely different geological 
systems, the former referable to the base of the carboniferous 
system, the latter to the oolitic, and neither showing the slightest 
tendency to a confusion of type.” In this opinion, however, it is 
alleged by other geologists, Mr. M’Coy has been misled; and 
since it was put forth, specimens have been sent from this country 
to Europe, collected from the quarries near Raymond Terrace, 
