Fingal and East Coast. 47 



the Break-o'-day Valley on the northern side, is of green- 

 stone : but the newer sandstone and the coal-measures 

 obtain along its side and base ; and to the eastward it is 

 cut off by high hills of vertical clay-slate, upon which 

 are elevated portions of the palaeozoic limestone group. 



The bituminous coal of the South Esk and the Break- 

 o'-day Valleys occurs in rather soft grey sandstone, 

 alternating with thick beds of schistose clay and shales, 

 and crops out in many situations where impetuous brooks 

 and rills, swollen by winter rains, have worn deep chan- 

 nels in the sides and hollows of the hills. 



The seams are numerous, and, as usual, vary much in 

 quality. 



The first locality in which I had the opportunity of 

 examining this coal was in the immediate vicinity of the 

 township of Fingal, and nearly E.S.E. from it. There it 

 presents itself in the two upper branches of an insignificant 

 creek, in a sinuosity of the greenstone hills, about two 

 and a half miles from the verge of the township, and 

 500 or 600 feet above the level of the plain. Malahide, 

 the residence of the late Mr. Talbot, bears nearly north 

 west from this coal, and may be distant from it about 

 three miles. Three seams of coal have been laid bare 

 in these two creeks. 



The main seam, which is the middle one, measures 12 

 feet in thickness, and it crops out in both creeks. In 

 both it has been more or less disrupted, and swept away 

 by the water. In the most easterly of the two, the coal 

 has been at one time on fire ; and the combustion has 

 extended more than 20 yards along the seam between 

 the two creeks. Such has been the intensity of this fire, 

 that the greyish white sandstone immediately around has 

 been converted by oxidation of the iron contained into red 

 sandstone ; and, mixed with fragments of greenstone, 

 it has been in many instances fused into a highly vesicu- 



