i Ne ee 
PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION ©. 467 
By the side of Skene’s Creek the author found a seam of coal, 
which was not more than 6 inches thick at its outcrop, but which 
on tunnelling was found to increase to 26 inches. Close to this 
was found another seam, 18 inches thick, and the two dipping at 
different angles come to lie close to one another at some 35 feet 
below the surface, giving in all 3 feet 10 inches of coal. Higher 
up the creek more seams were found, varying from 6 to 18 inches 
thickness. 
Altogether, the author has prospected for some 45 miles from 
east to west, and across the measures from north to south, and 
has opened 55 seams of coal, of which 50 consist of good black 
coal. From the rock-sections examined, the belief has been 
arrived at that an extensive coalfield exists in the Otway 
Ranges. In addition to coal, iron, fireclay, lead, copper, 
graphite, magnesium, cobalt, and manganese are to be found. 
19.—ON THE DESERT SANDSTONE OF CENTRAL 
AUSTRALIA. 
By Proressor Tate, F.G.S. 
20.—THE PHYSICAL CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH 
THE CHIEF COAL-MEASURES OF TASMANIA 
AND VICTORIA WERE FORMED. 
By 8S. H. Winttz, FVL:S. 
It has been the general impression among the earlier geologists 
who had visited Tasmania, notably, that the coal-measures of that 
island, which not only flank its mountain system for the most 
part, but encircle it as a zone, are of anterior age to the green- 
stone which rises above them. The result of over a quarter of a 
century’s observation convinces me that the contrary is the fact. 
In a word, that the dioritic crystalline rock, most frequently 
highly columnar and diabasic, is truly plutonic, and that it 
existed long before the coal-measure strata, with the great 
thickness of alternating thick-bedded sandstones, clay-shales, 
mudstones, limestones, conglomerates, together with the Silurian 
beds were laid down. When the coal deposits are not found upon 
the mountain slopes in Tasmania at an elevation of from 500 feet to 
1500 feet above sea level, they not only form an exception to the 
rule, but are of very limited extent, and much disrupted by 
subsequent local seismic disturbance, as, for instance, in the 
Mersey district, at Jerusalem, and the anthracite beds at New 
*p2 
