28 Whales Head and South Cape. 



900 feet. Nearly the same thickness of sandstone of a 

 flaggy and ferruginous character is exposed in the sections 

 along the coast travelling in the opposite direction, with 

 the intervention of two open bays, where the banks are 

 low sand-hills covered with sand, where it is to be pre- 

 sumed the beds have consisted originally of clayey and 

 soft schistose material, more liable than the sandstone to 

 be undermined, worn, and washed away by the action of 

 the stormy sea setting on these shores. 



The principal seams in the celebrated coal-fields of 

 Northumberland and Durham, in England, are termed 

 the high and low main seams, and are respectively 6 and 

 6^ feet in thickness, with an interval of 60 fathoms, in 

 which lay 8 subordinate beds, comprising one of 4, and 

 one of 3 feet. 



The point at which the high main seam has been 

 explored at the deepest level is about 5 miles from the 

 month of the Tyne, where it lies 960 feet from the 

 surface. 



At a colliery near Newcastle the low main is, on the 

 other hand, stated to be only 810 feet down. Below it 

 there have been found 7 seams, which are all of a quality 

 approaching the stone coal of the transition rocks. 



Most of the coal of Van Diemen's Land yet discovered 

 is of this nature ; though it is probable that the rocks with 

 which it is associated belong, relatively to other form- 

 ations, to an era yielding the best coal in England. 



The coal at Tasman's Peninsula is an anthracite ; that 

 of Recherche Bay is of the same nature : a seam which 

 crops out in the cliff on the northern side of Adventure 

 Bay yields a coal of the same character ; and this coal 

 between the Whale's Head and the South Cape is another 

 instance of the same. 



Having recurred to the South Cape coal, I may 

 mention that, about 500 or 600 yards inland from where 



