NOTE ON THE ORIGIN OF "KEROSENE SHALE." 

 By T. W. Edgeworth David, B.A., F.G.S. 



(Plate XVIII.) 



Introduction. — The so-called kerosene shale of New South 

 Wales has been more appropriately termed Torbanite by the 

 late Rev. W. B. Clarke.* 



Professor Liversidge has also adopted the same name for it, 

 remarking that the oil which it contains is probably not kerosene, 

 and that the fracture in most cases is conchoidal and not shaly, the 

 only exception to the latter rule being the small patch of oil shale 

 formerly worked at America Creek, near Wollongong.f 



The first mention of the discovery of kerosene shale, according 

 to LiversiJge (loc. cit.J, is that made by P. Cunningham, Sur- 

 geon, R.N., in a book entitled, " Two Years in New South Wales," 

 published in London in 1827, where he describes its occurrence 

 near Bathurst. Since that date kerosene shale has been proved to 

 exist in many localities in this colony, of which the most im- 

 portant are the following : — Colley Creek, near Murrurundi and 

 Greta in the Northern Coal-field, and in the same field in the 

 Greta Coal Measures, at Homeville, near Stony Creek, West 

 Maitland, it is represented by a seam of cannel coal ; Hartley, 

 Blackheath, Katoomba, Mt. Victoria, Mt. York, Burragorang, 

 Wallerawang, Capertee, Bathgate in the Western Coal-field ; 

 Joadja Creek in the South-western Coal-field, and Mount Kembla, 

 Ameiica Creek near Wollongong, and the head of the Clyde 

 River in the Southern Coal-field. 



* Remarks on the Sedimentary Formations of New South Wales, Sydney, 

 1878, p. 66. 



tMinerals of New South Wales, &c., by A. Liversidge, M.A., F.R.S., 

 London. Trubner & Co., 1888, pp. 145-153. 



