238 



Collieries. 



By John Mackenzie, F.G.S., Examiner of Coal Fields. 



New South Wales can, witliout any exaggeration, claim to be in 

 possession of tlie richest, most accessible, and most extensive coal- 

 fields in tlie Soutliern Hemisphere, and with such elements of wealth 

 and greatness, it possesses the essentials to national prosperity and 

 power, which are so necessary to make it become a country of the 

 greatest industrial importance. 



Its bituminous, semi-bitumiuous, splint, anthracitic, and cannel-coals 

 are equal in thickness and quality to any found in other parts of the 

 world, and we have numerous deposits of boghead mineral or petroleum 

 oil, cannel-coal, equal, and some superior to any found in England or 

 elsewhere. With such resources, the country has the creative power 

 that must in time (especially as labour becomes cheaper, as it is noAV 

 doing) bring to its smelting works and furnaces large quantities of 

 iron, copper, tin, galena, argentiferous, and other ores, not only from 

 within its own territory, but from other counti'ies adjacent to and at a 

 distance therefrom ; and coupled with its extensive and varied de- 

 posits of rich iron ore, it will be able to produce iron in sufficient 

 quantity to supply the wants of a nation in times of war and peace. 

 Great Bi-itain and America furnish instances of the value of coal to 

 those who have and utilise it. The continued prosperity of the former 

 country depends upon the duration of its coal-fields, and all avail- 

 able means are being taken to economise this primary source of her 

 prosperity and greatness. 



The area over which the coal measures are found embraces an area 

 of about 23,950 square miles which once formed one large coal basin, 

 and since its formation upheavals and disturbances of the strata near 

 the edge of the basin, have there thrown it into a series of anticlinal 

 and synclinal curves. 



During the last few years, the output of the Xew South Wales coal 

 trade has increased from 2,830,175 tons, valued at £1,303,164, in 1886, 

 to 3,738,589 tons, valued at £1,095,327, in 1895; and the boghead 

 mineral (torbanite) from 27,462 tons, valued at £67,239, in 1885, to 

 59,426 tons, valued at £75,218, in 1895. 



Neiocastle Harbour (the j^rincijial Coal Port of the Southern Hemisphere) 

 and its Facilities for Shipment. 

 Newcastle, in the county of Northumberland, the trade of which is 

 second only to that of Sydney, owes its great commercial importance 

 to the different coal-mines which have been opened out close to and 

 within 32 miles of the harbour. 



