242 NFIV SOUTH WALES, 



manufacturiBg, houscliold^ and other purposes in all the suburban and 

 inland towns, and large quantities of slack are there sold for brick and 

 tile making. 



Collieries at work in Western District. 



In 1895 there were fifteen collieries at work, that raised 190,864 

 tons of coal, valued at £40;,260; and the number of men employed 

 in and about the collieries was 296. The coal seam worked is the 

 lowest one in the upper coal measures. It is a splint coal, used for 

 steam, smelting, household, and blacksmith purposes, and is 10 feet 

 to 11 feet in thickness. About 5 feet 8 inches of it is the portion 

 wrought and sold. The coal seam is free from faults, and lies almost 

 horizontal. 



The cost of hewing the coal is now Is. 8d. per ton, and the 

 Lithgow Coal Association supply it to the Railway Department, for 

 their Penrith requirements, at 4s. 9d. per ton, and for the western 

 district other than Pemnth at 5s. ; and the Cullen Bullen at 4s. od. 

 per ton^ delivered at colliery sidings. 



The Cremorne Bore. 



On 9th November, 1893, the Sydney Harbour Collieries Company 

 bored through the Illawarra No. 1 coal, at a depth of 2,917 feet, at 

 Cremorne, adjacent to the Sydney Harbour, 10 feet 3 inches in thick- 

 ness, of splint and bituminous coal, which proves the correctness of 

 the opinions expressed by myself and others that the metropolis is 

 near the centre of our extensive coal basin, and that the Newcastle 

 and Illawarra coal measures would be found there. The Company are 

 in treaty for some land adjacent to their harbour leasehold, on which 

 two shafts are to be sunk. 



Boghead Mineral and Petroleum Oil, Cannel-coal Deposits. 



These deposits are very irregular in their area, and are found in 

 isolated patches, generally at a considerable distance apart, in the 

 midst of the workable coal measures of New South Wales. Whilst 

 the coal seams are very regular in their character (with the excep- 

 tion of their generally improving in quality, and thickening as they 

 leave the edge of the coal basin), the Boghead mineral (tor- 

 banite) is most irregular, and there is nothing to guide us in telling 

 Avhere the seam is likely to be, but by finding pieces of it at or below 

 its outcrop. Near the edge of the deposits this rich mineral deteri- 

 orates, and gradually changes into indurated clay, bituminous and 

 non-bituminous shale, coal, or ironstone. 



There are four companies getting and selling the mineral, and 

 two of them manufacture oil and other products therefrom. These 

 mines are situated at Hartley Yale, Genowlan, Ruined Castle, and 

 Nellie's Glen in the western district, and at Joadja in the southern 

 district, and prospecting is going on in the Capertee Valley, situated 

 about 150 miles north-west of Sydney. The richest of the mineral 

 yields about 100 to 130 gallons of crude oil per ton, and 17,000 to 

 18,000 cubic feet of 35 to 40 candle gas when gas only is extracted 

 from it. 



