Coal- Scams of Van Diemen's LaJid. 133 



Land, contains a very large per-centage of incombustible 

 matter. 



On all sides the beds are surrounded and appear to be 

 overlaid or cut off by massive greenstone, as represented 

 in the plan and section, PL IV., figs. 2 and 3. What the 

 actual geological relations of the greenstone and the car- 

 boniferus beds are, is very difficult to determine ; that the 

 latter do not pass conformably underneath them is, I think, 

 certain ; and it, therefore, remains to decide whether they 

 are completely cut off and isolated by the greenstone, as 

 represented in the plan and section, PI. IV., fig. 2, — or 

 whether the latter have been forced to the surface through 

 numerous and distant vents and fissures, and quietly over- 

 flowed the already upheaved and denuded edges of the car- 

 boniferous beds. 



In either of these cases similar appearances would be 

 found on the surface ; but a very wide difference would 

 exist as regards the economic value of the several seams of 

 Coal. 



From the dip and direction of the Fingal seams, I have 

 little doubt that they are portions of the same, and were 

 once continuous with those which occur on the north side of 

 the Break-o'-day Valley in the flanks of the Mount Nicholas 

 Range, — the intermediate portions being entirely swept away 

 during the formation of the valley of the South Esk and 

 Break-o'-day, and thus exposing the lower beds consisting 

 of clay-rock and fossiliferous limestones which, as before 

 stated, are found cropping at several points from a few miles 

 below Fingal to the entrance of St. Mary's Pass. From 

 Fingal to Avoca and Cleveland on the Hobart Town and 

 Launceston road, the carboniferous beds do not again make 

 their appearance ; and the hills which arise from the valley 

 on either side are chiefly composed of the older upheaved 



