O INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 



an expedition to ascertain the character of the western interior, a 

 practicable route across the Blue Mountains having been opened 

 in 1815. He traced the Lachlan doAvn to longitude 144°, and com- 

 pleted the discovery of the Blue Mountains, which constitute the 

 prominent physiographic feature of New South Wales. In 1818 

 he traced the Macquarie River to its junction with the Darling. 

 In the volume of his narrative* are brief references to the occur- 

 rence of different rocks, amongst which the more notew^orthy are 

 coal at Port Macquarie harbor, coal indications at the head of the 

 Macleay River, and limestone at Limestone Creek on the Lachlan, 

 and at Wellington Valley on the Macquarie, " which is the first 

 that has hitherto been discovered in Australia." The geological 

 specimens which were collected during the two exjjeditions were 

 reported on by Dean Bucklandf as alfording indications of primi- 

 tive rocks (granite, mica slate, clay slate, and serpentine), trap, 

 and limestone (resembling the " transition limestone" of England) ; 

 as also those gathered by Robert Brown on the Hunter Hiver, 

 which are described as coal and shale with plant impressions, and the 

 author states that there is an analogy between the Coal Formation 

 of the Hunter River and that of England, whilst certain fossiliferous 

 rocks from Hobart are described as nearly, if not identical with those 

 of the Mountain Limestone of England and Ireland. [This is the 

 first application of palaeontology to the stratigraphical chronology 

 of the Australian rocks, and a successful one, as the positions 

 assigned by Buckland to the two formations are substantially those 

 accepted by the local geologists of to-day.] 



Scott, Rev. Archdeacon^, refers the strata of the Newcastle 

 coalfield to the "coal formation" and the limestone as resembling 

 in the character of its organic remains the "' mountain lime.-tone " 

 of England, and thus independently arrived at the same conclusions 

 as }5uckland. 



Berry, Alexander §, describes the lithological sequence of the 

 strata of the Hunter River coalfield as traced by him for nine miles 

 south from Hunter River. The vegetable impressions are referred 

 to, and he thought he had recognised the leaf of the living Zamia 

 spiralis. Lie confounded the Carboniferous sandstone with that 

 forming the Blue Mountains, though he recognised the intrusive 

 nature and overlying position of the trap rocks. He records a 

 sandstone lying on indurated clay slate, at Shoalhaven ; and at 



• Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales (1820). 



+ Geological Trans., vol. v., p. 480. 1821. 



X Annals of Philosophy, June 2-lth. 1824. Bull, ties Sciences Nat., 1826, p. 285. 



I Geology of part of New South Wales, 1822, in Field's Geographical Memoirs. 1825. 



