Finffal and East Coast. 51 



day Valleys, from Fingal eastward to St. Patrick's Head. 

 Upon close examination of that range, I failed in detect- 

 ing coal in situ, except only in trivial and imperfect 

 seams, and of the worthless anthracite description so 

 characteristic of this sandstone. 



In some of the water-courses detached fragments of 

 good quality presented, but still in connection with 

 the newer sandstone, with its imbedded contents of sili- 

 cified wood, its casts and impressions of large strap- 

 shaped leaves, &c. 



It would appear, therefore, that coal, if it exists at 

 all along the southern side of the valley, is only to be 

 found there at a level under that of the plain, unless it 

 may be at some point where a very circumscribed up- 

 heaving action may have thrown up a portion of the 

 inferior strata and the coal with it. 



Upon the flat-topped hill, two or three miles south 

 from St. Patrick's Head, the newer sandstone, elevated 

 to nearly 900 feet above the plain, contains, with much 

 coarsely opalised wood and impressions of vegetation, 

 numerous thin, limited, and irregular seams of anthra- 

 citic coal and lignite : the latter is in some instances 

 divisible into laminae of extreme thinness, which are 

 possessed of no small degree of elasticity. 



The northern boundary of the Break-o'-day Valley is 

 formed by the Mount Nicholas range of greenstone 

 hills, which run nearly east and west, and attain an ele- 

 vation of about 2000 feet above Ihe sea. At intervals 

 along the summit of this range the greenstone culmi- 

 nates in lofty bare cones and needle-like points, which in 

 some few cases overtop the forest trees. These cones, as 

 on the opposite side of the valley, are composed of a con- 

 geries of columns and prisms of smaller dimensions : they 

 are, from time to time, seen broken, disjointed, and 



scattered on the tops of the hills, along the sides of the 



E 2 



