9° 
Sedimentary Formations 
Gardens, growing oil the Maclcay River. On comparing the 
liviug leaves with the impressions in the various deposits men¬ 
tioned, I can see no specific identity. This want of identity 
indicates, that however the plant may resemble living plants they 
cannot be ot a recent period ; and yet there are occasionally such 
close resemblances as to lead some good botanists to infer a 
recent period for some of them. These and some other Tertiary 
plants have been sent on at his request to Dr. Feistmantel, but 
too recently for learning bis opinion. 
The most remarkable instance I have examined is on the coast, 
about 12 miles north of Cape IIowo, where, at a place called 
Chouta (between Turn and Boonda), a cliff about 100 feet high, 
formed of sand and white silicate of alumina, contains beds of 
lignite charged with sulphide of iron, and which are full of phyto- 
lites much allied to the living vegetation. From the clays, some 
of which are nearly kaolin, articles of pottery have been formed. 
It has been proved that, by distillation, a fair proportion of 
lubricating oil may be produced from the lignitiforous clay, and 
other products are expected to result from these deposits. The 
clilf is about GO feet thick from the sea to the top of the clays, 
and borings below the sea-level have shown a still greater 
thickness. 
These deposits lie between the horns of the little bay at Tura 
and Boonda, resting at one end on the highly undulating Palaeo¬ 
zoic rocks, and at the other on a mass of porphyry. They were, 
formerly, no doubt, deposited in a depression among the slopes 
of the hills, but the wearing away of the coast has left a clilf of 
clay and sand instead of the original clilf of hard rocks. It is 
remarkable that at the south end, the rocks assume the character 
of a breccia of quartz cemented by siliceous matter (probably 
like a deposit mentioned by Mr, Gould as occurring in Tasmania) 
and in it analysis has detected the presence of gold, though some 
quartz veins at the north end contained none. 
My impression at first was that the lignite is recent, hut I 
place the deposits under the present head because it may be 
possible, notwithstanding the opinion of a botanical friend whose 
judgment is worthy of esteem, the plants are not recent. Baron 
Yon Mueller, to whom I submitted them, hesitated to express an 
opinion. They are deposited in clays of various kinds, chiefly 
white. Some of the hardened clinker-like sands covering the 
clays remind me of the sands on the coast of Dorset, at Studland 
and Bournemouth. If this be really a Tertiary locality, it does 
not contradict the general assertion at the commencement of this 
section, for no shells of any kind have been detected in any part 
of these beds. Swampy and stunted plants still grow' on the 
sands, which are very wet, and probably reproduce the phenomena 
beneath them, with the exception of the white clays which were 
