Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 26.djvu/88

2 the general type of the Queensland remains as referring them to the Upper Oolite. A gigantic species of Crioceras is regarded by the author as possibly indicative of the occurrence of Neocomian deposits in Australia. The fossil evidence upon which Professor M'Coy inferred the occurrence of the Muschelkalk in Australia was said by the author to be nugatory, his supposed Myophoria proving to be a Trigonia nearly allied to T. gibbosa of the Portland Oolite, and his doubtful Orthoceras a small Serpula. The author had found no indications of the existence of Triassic or Liassic deposits in Queensland.

The blocks from Western Australia, referred by the author to the Middle Lias, contain Myacites liassianus (Quenst.), and are quite as highly ferruginous as the English Marlstone. The species identified by the author with British Oolitic species would indicate a range from the Inferior Oolite to the Cornbrash; the author suggested that the species may have had a longer range in time in Australia than in England, or that the subordinate divisions of the Oolite were not clearly marked in the Australian Mesozoic deposits. He is inclined to refer the fossils to the period of the Inferior Oolite.

The author inferred, from the occurrence of these Mesozoic fossils in drifted blocks at the two extremities of Australia, separated by 38° of longitude, that an enormous denudation of rocks of the secondary series has taken place over a considerable part of Australia.

Descriptions of a great number of new species were appended to the paper.

organic remains noticed by the author were found by him in a small block of chocolate-coloured micaceous laminated marl, obtained from a bed about ten feet thick, at a depth of 100–110 feet, in the auriferous drifts of Sydney flats, on the banks of the Rocky River. The author found the leaves of two forms of Dicotyledonous plants, fragments of a flat narrow leaf which he refers to the Coniferæ, a seed-vessel, and the impressions of several seeds. The insect-remains consist principally of the elytra of Beetles, among which Buprestidæ appear to predominate. The vegetable-remains seem to indicate that the deposit is of Tertiary age.

Prof. mentioned the discovery of a large Crioceras in the Jurassic beds near Port Elizabeth.

Mr. suggested that we had hardly a right to apply the European standard in judging fossils from all parts of the