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Coal-bearing strata are found at Bowen River, in Queensland, covering an area of 24,000 square miles, whilst important mines of Cretaceous age are worked at Ipswich, near Brisbane. In New Zealand quantities of lignite, described as a hydrous coal, are found and utilised; also an anhydrous coal which may prove to be either of Cretaceous or Jurassic age.
Observations have already been made on the distinctness of the organic remains of the Oolitic and Cretaceous strata, and the proportion of species common to the different members of the Oolite. Between the Lower Oolite and the Lias there is a somewhat greater break, for out of 256 mollusca of the Upper Lias, thirty- seven species only pass up into the Inferior Oolite.
They have been supposed by some naturalists to warrant a conclusion expressed in these words: "We are still living in the Cretaceous epoch;" a doctrine which has led to much popular delusion as to the bearing of the new facts on geological reasoning and classification.
In the eastern part of the Alps, some of the Palaeozoic strata, as well as the older Mesozoic formations, including the oolitic and cretaceous rocks, are distinctly recognisable.
I would remind the reader that in the central basin of France, in which Cuvier found his first Palæotherium, and which afterwards proved to have been thickly settled by the early Mammalia, the deposits of the Jurassic, Cretaceous, and Tertiary epochs follow each other in immediate, direct, uninterrupted succession; that the same is true of other localities, in Germany, in Southern Europe, in England, where the most complete collections have been made from all these deposits; and there has never been brought to light a single fact leading us to suppose that any intermediate forms have ever existed through which more recent types have been developed out of older ones.
The number of fossil remains comprised in these collections is very considerable; mastodons especially, and fossils of the cretaceous and jurassic deposits. . .Imagine that all this is at my full disposal for description and illustration, and you will understand my pleasure. The liberality of the American naturalists toward me is unparalleled. I must not omit to mention Mr.
Mandeville described a picture, in which he appeared to have confidence, of a fight between an Iguanodon and a Megalosaurus, where these huge iron-clad brutes were represented chewing up different portions of each other's bodies in a forest of the lower cretaceous period.
Despite their feeble wits, this well-armored family lived on through millions of years which intervened between their appearance, at the opening of the Jurassic, and the close of the Cretaceous, when they became extinct. A less stupid brute than the stegosaur was TRICERATOPS, the dinosaur of the three horns, one horn carried on the nose, and a massive pair set over the eyes.
It is certainly in the Alps of Switzerland and Savoy, more than in any other district in Europe, that the geologist is prepared to meet with the signs of an intense development of Plutonic action; for here strata thousands of feet thick have been bent, folded, and overturned, and marine secondary formations of a comparatively modern date, such as the Oolitic and Cretaceous, have been upheaved to the height of 12,000, and some Eocene strata to elevations of 10,000 feet above the level of the sea; and even deposits of the Miocene era have been raised 4000 or 5000 feet, so as to rival in height the loftiest mountains in Great Britain.
It is supposed, from various evidences, that the rainfall was very much more abundant then than now, and consequently the rivers had greater flow, and more eroding and carrying capacity. The uplift continued, and the geologists tell us it did not cease until about fifteen thousand feet, deposited since Cretaceous times, were thrust up into the air.
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