Geology 



The limestone appeared, at first sight, to be devoid 

 of fossils, but a careful search revealed a thin band near 

 the bottom of the cliff that contained numerous though 

 small fossils. These turned out to belong to the Permian 

 genus Bakewellia, and resembled somewhat a small 

 mussel shell in form. We therefore concluded that these 

 limestones were of Permian age, which was borne out 

 by the fact that they dipped below the Triassic Sandstone 

 at the foot of the gorge. The gorge itself terminated 

 abruptly, and we found ourselves in Lyell, the capital of 

 the country. The city is built on both sides of the river, 

 and is sheltered by the bold escarpment of the Permian. 



Lyell lies at the head of the steamer navigation, and 

 therefore any further exploration of the river would have 

 to be carried out in small boats. As the autumn season 

 was now far advanced we deemed it advisable to defer 

 our start until the early spring, so that we might have 

 the best of the weather for the exploration of the 

 mountainous regions which lay in the interior of the 

 country, and of which little was as yet known. 



The winter was occupied in and about Lyell examin- 

 ing the local geology, superintending the operations of 

 our prospecting party, and collecting men and materials 

 for our expedition. 



We found that Lyell stands on a coal-field, and we 

 had, therefore, little difficulty in obtaining a portable 

 steam boring plant, and after having the furnace modified 

 so as to consume wood fuel, we sent the machine in 

 sections to Red River to be transported overland to the 

 scene of operations. As this would be a difficult and 

 possibly a lengthy operation, we did not propose to go 

 ourselves until some weeks had elapsed, but to leave 



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