58 Fingal and East Coast. 



The coal-beds on the northern side of the Break-o'- 

 day dip generally to the westward and southward : on 

 the southern side, near and opposite to Fingal, they 

 dip to N.E., E.N.E., and east, indicating something 

 like an anticlinal axis along which the coal-measures 

 have been ruthlessly swept away. The exposure of the 

 inferior beds of crinoidal limestone and ferruginous 

 grit through the valley in the course of such a line 

 favours this opinion ; but additional and closer observa- 

 tions are required to establish the fact. 



It is likely that the deposition of vegetable matter, of 

 which the magnificent coal seams of this district are 

 formed, extended over a large area; and that they 

 were variously disrupted and carried off by currents of 

 water, as has been stated, consequent upon and super- 

 added to the effect of igneous agency at the time of the 

 greenstone irruption. It is not unlikely that this basin 

 may have originally extended to the upper valley of the 

 South Esk, and even to the littoral side of the hills near 

 George's River, — as it certainly appears to have done by 

 the higher valley of the St. Paul's River, and the head of 

 Swanport to the sea, at the mouth of the Douglas River. 



Fragments of bituminous coal have been picked up in 

 the channels of various rivulets descending into the valley 

 of the St. Paul's. I have seen several seams of coal, 

 more or less bituminous, along the range of hills to the 

 west and northward of the extensive flat country through 

 which the River Apsley winds before it is absorbed in 

 the marshy ground on the borders of Moulting Bay. A 

 thick seam of the finest bituminous coal is exposed in the 

 Douglas River, and also, it is said, in a creek a few 

 miles more to the northward. The indications of its 

 existence near Long Point are very unequivocal ; and, 

 lastly, the thick seam of coal at the Schouten Island is 

 to a certain extent bituminous. 



