20 
Sedimentary 'Formations 
1 edged palaeozoic marine beds occur (the fossils from which 
t> s ? u t r ^ own *° Heril T Uarkly, who submitted them to 
Irot. M‘Coy), and to meet this I requested that a geologist 
might be sent up from Victoria to test the facts. Accordingly 
Mr. Daintree came, and in the Yeoman, Melbourne journal, 
jSo. 100, will be found his refutation of the inversion story 
and a full confirmation of my assertion. This circumstance 
is ignored by the Commissioners, as are all others that do not 
fall in with the imagination of certain critics in Victoria. But I 
may now add that Gloss op tcris in coal seams below the marine 
beds has been found in other localities, as for instance at Greta, 
where the coal lias been reached below more than 400 feet of 
marine strata; Glossopteris and other plants also occurring 2 
feet 6 inches above the coal. [See Sections No. 1 and No. 2*at 
the end of this Memoir.] 
Not only so, but it is found in sandstones elsewhere, amidst 
the marine fossils themselves and in the very same portions of 
lock with the latter. So that no reasonable doubt ought to exist 
m the mind of an honest controversialist that" Glossopteris ” does 
occur as early as the so called Lower Carboniferous strata, and 
therefore our coal seams have a right to be held of that age. 
Now Schimper, to whom I before alluded, considers that the 
Indian, African, and Australian plants are merely varieties of 
the same G. Browniana. In India no marine fossils have yet 
been found m connection with its coal plants ; and in Africa the 
Glossoptens is not set down to any older formation than Triassic 
hut CVCI1 that is older (although Mesozoic) than 
Oolitic, to the latter of which M‘Coy refers them. And if Glos- 
soptens has a range as extensive as some other fossils which pass 
through three separate series of strata, why might not it pass up 
into .Secondary rocks, without denying its existence in Austra¬ 
lian Lower Carboniferous ? There it clearly does not govern, 
but must be subordinate to the Fauna. But it is not alone in 
that position, other plants also occur therein which have as much 
au Oolitic facies as itself. And yet it is undoubtedly true, as is 
well shown by Daintree, that in Queensland Glossopteris is con- 
^ , aro . ln association with Paleozoic fauna, and 
hat the so called Tamiopteris is found to accompany a Mezozoie 
auna ; and I can aver, after upwards of thirty years experience, 
hat no marine deposits of Secondary age have yet been discovered 
m rs ew South AY ales ; although in Queensland beds of coal occur 
in supposed connection with such. 
Theie may, therefore, be two epochs of coal, as suggested by 
Murchison, or as stated by Mr. Carruthers, two portions of one 
series, without dispossessing the lower portion of its right to hold 
a property in a plant that may not have existed in the time of the 
