96 Report on the Coal said to have been found 
from the unfossiliferous and compact blue limestone of the 
Western Marshes and Circular Pond Plains. In the bed of 
a creek which discharges into the Mersey on its western side, 
and about two miles above the estuary, the same fossiliferous 
clayey beds present themselves. In the channel of the Mer- 
sey itself these beds rise as they approach the dyke of basalt 
mentioned. This basalt traverses the bed of the river, and 
swells almost immediately into a hill 200 to 250 feet high on 
its eastern bank. There is, on the right bank of the river, 
upon the upper side of this eruptive dyke, and dipping to- 
wards it, a series of beds of a brown schist,* of a nature highly 
combustible: its surface is usually finely punctated—it is 
semi-soft, sectile, fissile, flexible, and slightly elastic, and 
when held to a candle burns with a strong yellowish white 
flame, emitting dense volumes of sooty smoke, and giving 
out a peculiar and highly-diffusive odour, somewhat like the 
smell of resin: so pervasive is the smell, that a small fire 
made of this fuel in the open air will sensibly “ taint the 
gale” to more than a quarter of a mile. The residuum, when 
imperfectly burnt, is a brownish black slate, which, when more 
perfectly caicined, becomes white. As a fuel it yields both 
heat and flame, and remains incandescent, in the manner of 
earthy anthracite, after its more inflammable constituents have 
been consumed. The same brown combustible schist presents 
itself a mile higher up the river, and on the same side, but at 
an elevation of more than 100 feet above the water, and then 
it appeared to dip slightly into a high and rather steep hill, 
composed of a siliceo-ferruginous conglomerate, containing 
fragments of sea shells ; but whether it dipped actually under 
this conglomerate, or abutted against it, could not be dis- 
tinctly ascertained: I incline, however, to the opinion that 
it passes under the breccia. 
* Allied to Dysodile. 
