New South Wales. 
463 
which exhibit the zoological fossils and leaves of the Newcastle 
ferns in the same blocks of stone. 
Here, then, there is confusion of the supposed types, and the 
most direct proof that these fossils, however apparently differing, 
are of the same age. M. de Strzelecki has stated a similar fact, 
respecting the rocks at Spring Hill, in Van Diemen s Land, 
belonging to the Jerusalem coal field, which is now known to be 
of the same age as that of Newcastle. Similar facts may be 
noticed in other parts of New South Wales, as, for instance, in 
the neighbourhood of Mount Wingen, and along the Page, as 
well as at Black Creek on the Hunter, where coal occurs below 
the beds charged with the peculiar fossil shells. 
To occupy space here with the discussion of this point is need¬ 
less. It will receive the fullest investigation elsewhere. But for 
the present it may suffice to say, that although the fossil flora of 
Australia, unlike its fossil fauna, is more near in resemblance to 
that of the oolitic beds of Europe, than to that of the true car¬ 
boniferous rocks, there is no greater discrepancy than now exists 
between the vegetation of Australia and that of Europe; and it 
would be curious indeed if the land exhibited the traces of species 
identical with those of the land of ancient Europe, when it is 
known that no terrestrial phenomena of that kind are as ubiquitous 
as those phenomena which depend upon the existence of persistent 
oceanic temperature. It is well known that living species abound 
in the waters of Port Jackson, which are more readily comparative 
with oolitic than with any other fossils, and that some of our 
living plants and animals are equally comparative with types from 
the oolitic flora and fauna (though no traces occur in the coal 
beds); but no one would presume from these facts to declare, 
that the present Australian era is oolitic and not recent. 
Some of the plants in the Australian coal fields are more like 
those that now inhabit Australia than those of any other country, 
and the inference seems, therefore, to be that Australia always 
had, even in the most ancient times, a peculiar flora, which has 
been modified, but not altogether changed. 
The inference, then, from the discrepancy between the fossil 
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