Harrison— On the Geology of Hobart Town. 497 
forms no bad substitute for the Calton Hill, and Mount Wellington 
far exceeds Arthur’s Seat in altitude and grandeur. The green- 
stones, too, on the top of the latter are strikingly columnar, rising 
above the densely timbered base in a colonnade of Titanie pilasters 
—a gigantic Staffa superimposed on an exaggerated Mount Edge- 
combe. 
Along the shores- of Storm Bay, igneous rocks are developed in 
cliffs of the most romantic form. Where a columnar structure 
prevails, many separate masses may be traced from the top down- 
wards for many hundred feet; and so regular is the line that bounds 
these tremendous crystals, that a stranger could easily mistake a 
group of them for baulks of timber set on end. Those who are 
acquainted with the features of New Zealand military architecture 
will understand me when I say that Cape Rauol—one of these ba- 
saltic headlands—may be aptly compared to a tremendous ‘ pah’ 
erected by a race of giants, and subsequently battered by some 
colossal artillery. ‘Cape Pillar,’ farther down the bay, is alike, or 
even more, romantically shaped. ‘The base is worn into chasms, or 
fretted with caves, that might—so regular is the outline—be Gothic 
doorways leading to what would almost seem some towering castle 
keep above. 
These basaltic outflows have also tended to modify denuding in- 
fluences brought to bear upon the somewhat friable sandstone which 
such outflows often surmount as a thin capping. This is especially 
seen along portions of the eastern coast, much of the cliff-line of 
which is composed of what may be termed two stories—sandstone 
below, and black amorphous basalt above. 
At Schouter’s Island, near Oyster Bay, the conservative power of 
igneous rocks is strikingly displayed. Northernly, this island is of 
granite. Against the granite, sandstone and layers of coal have been 
deposited. Then has come a period of convulsion, breaking up the 
sandstone-plateau and dislocating the beds. Currents sweeping over 
what was still a sea-bottom have washed away much, both of coal 
and sandstone; but, in one spot, an outlier of the latter containing 
seams of the former was left undenuded until an eruption of green- 
stone covered the district, and preserved this isolated mass from the 
effect of any subsequent ocean-currents. It is simply the story of 
flies in amber, or the preservation of the bones of Bruce in melted 
bitumen, illustrated on a large scale. And so here coal is dug froma 
seam which but for such agencies must have been swept away 
by ceaseless ocean-surges rolling uninterruptedly from the far-off 
Southern Pole. 
Norre.—In ‘A Sketch of the Principal Geological Features of 
Hobart, Tasmania, by 8. H. Wintle, Esq.,’ in the ‘ Quarterly 
Journal of the Geological Society’ for November last, ‘ Stigmarie 
are mentioned as having been met with in the New Town Sandstone. 
With all due deference to the opinion of Mr. Wintle, a resident on 
the spot, I can but think the above statement is an error. Whilst in 
Hobart last winter, I especially made enquiries respecting any true 
VOL. II.—NO. XVII. K K 
