The Country round Lyell the Coal-Field 



made a start up-stream with provisions sufficient for 

 one month, leaving instructions that further supplies 

 should be sent after us a fortnight later. There was 

 said to be abundant game in the forests of the region 

 we intended to visit, so we had little fear of starvation 

 even if the supplies failed to reach us. 



The valley of the Hutton River above the town was 

 much narrower and possessed steeper banks than in the 

 portion of its course which lay below the Permian 

 escarpment. There was also very little alluvium, the 

 banks being cut in the shales and sandstones of the 

 Coal Measures. 



Arrived at the mouth of Shale Creek we landed to 

 inspect the cores from one of the trial holes close by. 

 After some difficulty the spot was located, but we found 

 that the building in which the cores had been stored had 

 become unroofed and that the specimens had for the 

 most part crumbled to powder. This was disappointing, 

 for we had been in hopes that we might have obtained 

 fossils from these cores which might have been a guide 

 to the portion of the series to which they belonged. 



After a thorough exploration of this neighbourhood, 

 without seeing a single exposure of solid rock, we re- 

 turned to the river, and here, as we paddled up Shale 

 Creek, we were more fortunate, as there were good 

 sections in the river banks. 



For many miles we traversed ganisters and ordinary 

 brown sandstones, with here and there a bed of shale. 

 We were travelling along the strike of the beds for the 

 most of the way, and therefore there was little variety. 



Of fossils there were few, and these were of little 

 interest. Casts of Catamites, which ranges right through 

 i 129 



