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

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.

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$“ La formazione Carbonifera di Pechino ha uno sviluppo stra- ordinario.” [“ 11. Coinit. Geolog. cVItalia, Bullet ino 9-10, 1S71, p. 234.”] “ Presso il lago Poyaug il deposito scistoso, ora accenuato, e ricoperto da reg&rissimi strati Carboniferi, fra i quali sono intercalati alcuni straticelli calcarei ricchissimi di brachiopodi in perfetto stato di conservazione. Questa fauna differisce essenzialmente da quella che vedesi assoeiata al carbon fossile nelle proviucie nordiche della China: il genere Productus vi e prevaleute per numero, ma il caratteristico P. semireticulatus vi e scarso e rappresentato solo da piccoli individui Earissimi sono gli esemplari di Spirifer, mentre vi abbondano ; crinoidi, i coralli, gli spongiarii ed i generi Orthoceras e Porcellia : sonvi pure rappre- sentati i generi Cyrtia, Orthis, Siphonotreta, &c.” \icl., p. 230.] Mr. T. W. Ivingsmill confirms these statements in his account of the Geology of the East Coast of China, considering with others that “The Chinese Coal-fields may prove to be the largest in the world, and at a future period will have an important influence on the 'destinies of the East.”# More recently, in 1873, a letter written to M. Daubree by M. l’Abbe Armand David states, that in the district of Mien-shien Coal-beds exist in association with Marine Palaeozoic fossils and so-called Secondary plants which the author describes as inter- polating each other—“ Ce que je ne puis m’expliquer c’est l’existence de ces calcaires durs cristallins au-dessus de la houille et au-dessous, avec des apparences physiques, identiques, quoiqu’ils soient separes par 100 ou 200 metres de marnes.” (“Bull. de la >Soc. Geol. de France,” 3 ser., t. ii., 1874, No. 5, p. 40G. He also states that on the mountain of Lean-chan, near Han-tchong-fou, nearly 3,000 feet high, a grayish-white lime- stone from 300 to GOO feet thick, having a dip of from 40° to G0°, forms the summit. Below comes in a series of bluish, red, and yellow marls con- cordantly stratified with the limestones, followed by red beds like sandstone, the whole system abounding in fossils. Coal occurs above the marl in contact with the upper limestone, which, as well as the shales and clays, contains vegetable and shelly fossils. Ad. Brongniart describes in the same number of the “Bulletin” the plant remains to be Pecopteris TVkitbyensis; two Sphenop/eris # (Notice in “ Geologist,” 6, p. 69, of a paper read before the Geol. Soc. Dublin in 1862. Dub. Q.J.) In a valuable memoir, “ On the Geologg of Chinaf by the same author, we learn that besides Devonian, Marine fossils, and Carboniferous beds containing Lepidodrendon and Sigillaria, and in some places younger conglomerates, and red sandstones not unlike Triassic succeed them, “ the Coal, at the latest, being Triassic.” In other parts, such as in the Tung-ting system, he tells us that “ there is a striking resemblance between it and the Devonian and Subcarboniferous rocks of the South of Ireland—the same succession of grits and shales at the bottom, and a similar development of limestone above, while the type of the few fossils found seems likewise to approach that of the Lower Carboniferous rocks of Europe.” (Q.J.G.S., sxv, pp. 119-138, 1866.)$