New South Wales. 
5i 
Towards the north of the Capo York Peninsula the sandstones 
are barren of fossils, and about the Cape seem to have more the 
character of Laterite , resting on Porphyry. 
Mr. Wilkinson, in his researches among the tin-mines of New 
England, recognized the drifts which in Victoria are considered 
Pliocene ; and Mr. Norman Taylor and the late Professor 
Thomson, in their paper “ On the occurrence of Diamond near 
Mudgee” {Trans. Bog. Soc. ofN.S.W., 1870, p. 94) make mention 
of older and newer Pliocene drift. Whether there be any fossil 
evidence for the propriety of these terms I know not. That there 
are drifts of different parts of one epoch I believe, and, perhaps, 
the divisions are good, oven if the designations arc too refined! 
Dr. Duncan has advised us to postpone the Lyellian designations 
for the present. Having very recently visited almost every 
locality mentioned in the paper, and examined for myself much 
of the alluvia of the Gold Fields in a large portion of the county 
of Phillip, 1 am prepared to testify to the extreme faithfulness of 
the description given by Messrs. Taylor and Thomson. My 
remark, therefore, about the term Pliocene is not to be taken as 
complaining of it, but as a justification for the introduction of 
some of the drifts in question under the present head. A dis¬ 
tinction of time is however clearly marked in the character of the 
various deposits or iu the difference of botanical remains. 
Perhaps some of these deposits in the Gold Fields, as well as 
some of the shelly conglomerates at the mouth of the Flinders, 
had better be considered as belonging to the next division of my 
subject; and though placed as Tertiary, I am not satisfied they 
arc such, as no positive proof exists by unmistakable evidence 
that they are so. 
In the far Western interior, beyond the Darling, shelly deposits 
of fine sandstone have been reached in well-making, and by the 
kindness of my friend, Mr. Woore, C.C.L., of the Albert District, 
I have been just put in possession of several good specimens, 
together with fossil wood, apparently not very ancient, which I 
believe to be Tertiary. 
There is no doubt a tine waterworn drift over large areas of 
the Auriferous and Stanniferous regions and in the southern part 
of Maneero ; but in many cases the drift betrays its origin, as the 
result of the disintegration of conglomerates, and such I believe 
to be the origin of the drift seen by Professor Liversidge near 
Wallerawang. (Report on Iron Ore and Coal Deposits, read 
before Royal Society, 9 Dec., 1874.) He compares it with the 
diamond drift at Bmgcra, alluding to the “ nodules df conglom¬ 
erate” in each; but this conglomerate may be found in situ in 
the coal-bearing beds close at hand. 
Many drifts have undoubtedly been dispersed and re-agglom¬ 
erated, and again dispersed from one age to another, and the 
