82 
Sedimentary Formations 
Dr. Fcistnmntel lias since favoured mo with several letters, 
which relate to a fuller expression of our Australian formations, 
to which I cannot do full justice in my limited space. I must, 
however, quote a passage from some remarks of my own, during 
my discussion with Professor M‘Coy, which were read before the 
[Royal Society of Victoria, December 10, 1SG0, in order to show 
that any proposal to gi ve a more recent age than that 1 defended 
to our N. S. Wales Coal-seams does not take me by surprise: 
“To sum up all, I may hero state that though it is very easy to 
make the £ worse appear the better reason, ? 1 have no object in 
any controversy oil this question but truth. Having since iny 
acquaintance with the whole of the facts always found a diffi¬ 
culty in reconciling the idea of two epochs in the formation of 
the "deposits including our Coal-beds, in consequence of the 
apparent continuous succession of those deposits and the occur¬ 
rence of Coal throughout, together with the absence of Oolitic 
zoological and the presence of Palaeozoic zoological forms, 1 have not 
seen fit to renounce the opinion which is sha red by others as well 
by myself, because at present we have no grounds to do so. Put 
it is easy to gather from this paper, as well as from other 
evidence of my own, that I am quite ready to admit, when 
proved, that some of the beds are younger than my fourth 
division, or Mr. McCoy’s base of the Carboniferous system, and 
may with the example of India before us be even younger than 
Oolite ; but with the idea of one succession, I must renounce the 
idea of all above the base being Oolitic.” 
puture researches may he needed to ascertain—-what is possible 
— that true Pabeozoie Marine fossils may 1)0 yet detected, in some 
at present obscure localities, above the horizon of the Tipper Coal- 
seams of Xew South A Vales — or below the base of the present 
Talchir of India; and in either case there would be a probability 
of reversing a decision respecting the claim of the lowest Meso¬ 
zoic, a contingency which would not take even Dr. Feistmantcl 
by surprise, as he suggested to me (August, 1877) : “ The Indian 
Daim'ida series you may be pretty certain must turn out Trias, 
or at the utmost Uppermost Termian as passage bed between this 
formation and the Trias , but there is nothing as yet which would 
prove for this, while all is in favour of* Trias.” \Vo must bear in 
mind, however, a Suggession of Mr. Carruthers, that the Permian 
vegetation shows Mesozoic affinities, and that in fade the com¬ 
mencement of the Mesozoic tlora is to be sought in the Permian. 
(Q. J. Cl. S., xxv, p. 158.) 
The above references under the head of Mesozoic, though 
alluding to the Carboniferous, are rightly introduced — but not 
with the intention of accepting the former age as comprehending 
the latter till further proof has been afforded. 
