22 Sedimentary Formations 
by the retort that if peculiarity is to he a guidc^ in determining 
geological ago there is an end of any certainty for such persons 
as affect to uphold their own theories by reference to peculiar 
plants ; and this Professor M'Coy himself does in relation to a 
Scarborough plant by which ho affects to guide his Oolitic deter¬ 
mination to the exclusion of Glossopteris and its usual associates. 
Inspecting Palteoniseus, one of the New South Wales fishes, 
a passage translated from Agassiz, whose decision ought to be 
satisfactory, will not be out of place, considering that it meets 
tlie objection on the form of the caudal fin. He says,—“ I know 
ten species of this genus, which appear to be limited to coal 
measures and the Zechstein. It might not, however, be impossible 
to discover traces in the Ores biyarre* the Muschelkalk, and the 
Keuper” (*. c , in the Trias); “ but that which I believe I am able to 
affirm is, that it does not ascend to the Jurassic formations , of which 
the numerous representatives of the order of Ganoids have the tail 
regular , and never prolonged in a long point forming the upper 
lobe of the caudal, as takes place constantly in the genera of the 
earlier formations. I do not understand what were the intentions 
of Nature which have produced these singular differences, but it 
is certain that they exist, and it would be to misunderstand our 
duty to ignore them, or to attribute less importance to so general 
and - constant a fact.” ( "Recherche* sur les Poissons fossil rs, tom. 1, 
p. 43.) To this may be added, that tho generality of the fishes, 
which are all heterocercal in New South Wales, are found more 
than 1,000 feet geologically higher than our workable coal, which 
those who denounce “ vulgar errors” condemn to a mere Jurassic 
existence. 
The existence of Palaeozoic strata of Carboniferous age in 
some parts of Victoria is, as I believe, a fair assumption of the 
Cape Paterson Reporters, though at present they cannot prove 
their position by fossiliferous evidence ; but the denial of that 
existence would hand over their whole coal territory to a forma¬ 
tion or formations, to prove the age of which they have no more 
marine evidence than they have respecting a Carboniferous era. 
They have never yet seen a single marine fossil bed in all Victoria 
to justify even their adopted view of their coal belonging to tho 
Oolitic age, which is elsewhere multitudinonsly fertile in marine 
fossils, and this, no doubt, is “ peculiar.” The Reporters on the 
Western Port Coal Pields notify carefully, that “ it should bo 
distinctly understood that our opinion respecting the age of the 
New South Wales coal measures is based entirely on the collection 
of rocks, fossils, and coals forwarded to us by the late Mr. Keene, 
* He afterwards names P. catopterus as belonging to this sandstone. It 
was, however, only found in one spot, only “a few square feet” in extent, in 
the comity of Tyrone. ( Portloclc, Geology of Londonderry, Tyrone, and Fer¬ 
managh, p. 468.) 
