Remarks on the sedimentary formations of New South Wales : illustrated by references to other provinces of Australasia / by W.B. Clarke.

  • William Branwhite Clarke
Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the sedimentary formations of New South Wales : illustrated by references to other provinces of Australasia / by W.B. Clarke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    40/179 page 35
    Respecting Mr. Daintree’s evidence, may be added here the extracts from two letters from that gentleman to myself (which were published by me in a paper on “ Marine Fossil iferons Secondary Formations in Australia” (Q.J.Gr.S., xxiii, p. 11) :— “ Bowen, February 10, 18G6. “ In the Bowen River Coal-field, your statement as to the Palaeozoic age of the Newcastle beds is, so far as I could judge, entirely proven, since we have Spirifers, &c., similar to those in Russell’s shaft and the railway section at Maitland overlying the Coal-seams, Glossopteris being the most abundant fossil fern.” “ Brisbane, April 11, 1866. “ I send you a copy of what Professor M'Coy addressed to me after an examination of the fossils I took him, viz.,— 1 Tour brown beds No. 2 are identical with the Marine beds underlying the Coal of the Hunter [i.e. overlying the Stony Creek Coal-seams.—W.B.C.], ‘the Productus hrachytlicerus, Sfc., Sfc., fixing them. The Streptorhynchus is new, but of clearly carbon- iferous type. I have no doubt of their being Upper Palaeozoic. ‘ The plants are Phyllotheca Australis and Glossopteris Broion- iana, forms related to which in Europe are only found in Mesozoic rocks.’ ” As to Lepidodendron, I have no where asserted that the Lepidodendron, Sigillaria and other plants of that class have been found in or over the beds of Newcastle or at Wollongong, though I have mentioned already the possible discovery hereafter ; but I have asserted many times that such plants occur in some parts of our Coal Measures, and that below the Marine fossils which underlie the Upper Measures Glossopteris occurs, and others which have been by some considered solely of Mesozoic age ; and I have therefore argued that there is “ a connection,” which has been denied, the denial in my opinion having arisen from want of personal experience on the part of my opponents, though I have given them the same credit I take to myself, viz., that we each and all come to conclusions to which we are led by our individual acquaintance with or ignorance of facts. That some of the doubters have contented themselves with passing sentence without sufficient inquiry is distinctly stated by one of them in a Parlia- mentary document, from which extracts will be found further on. I refer now to the “ Progress Peport from the Select Committee on Coal Fields,” Melbourne, ordered to be printed, 20th October, 1857, and to the Evidence under questions Nos. 461, 471, 577, 581, 582, 584, 586, 588 to 592. No one who peruses that evidence will deny that it was upon preconceived Palaeonto- logical determinations alone, without the condescension of a local research, that positive dogmatic dicta were declared as law with a wilful resolve to over-rule any opinion in opposition. Mr.
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