14 GEOLOGY OF STND. 



and west at aliout the same distance, which is vory small — not more than 25 yards at the 

 outside ; wliilo to the south-east the thickness first discovered held good in January 1859. 

 But the level in this direction was intended to intersect the first deep shaft (No. 1) sunk by 

 Mr. Inman, and in that shaft, as clearly shown hy Mr. Brunton's sections, the coal had 

 diminished in thickness to such an extent as to have been passed through without being 

 recognised by Mr. Inman, who continued sinking for nearly 50 feet further, upon the sup- 

 position that the coal seam, instead of being nearly horizontal, dipped at an angle of 20° 

 or 25° to the south, an error from which a slight acquaintance with Geology might have 

 saved him, since the rocks are sufficiently well seen at the surface close bj', and, although 

 varying somewhat in their dip, they never exceed about 7°, and even that dip is exceptional. 

 Where the clays accompanying the coal crop out at the surface, 250 or 300 yards south-west 

 of the colliery, the coal is only represented by a slightly carbonaceous shale. 



The distance of the shaft No. 2, from which the coal was worked, from shaft No. 1, 

 is only 100 yards. The whole workable " seam" of coal was, in fact, exhausted. And, as 

 dry details seldom convey a sufficiently distinct impression to any one who has not visited 

 the place, it may suffice to state that the patch of coal at Lynyan, for it cannot he called, 

 a seam, did not extend in a workable form for a stone's throio in any direction whatever. 

 Further remark is superfluous. 



Mr. Brunton, in his letter of the 15th January 1859, suggests the probability of the 

 coal supposed to exist at the bottom of No. 1 shaft being the representative of the lower seam 

 passed through in the well sunk by the Beloochees. From the absence of all who had been 

 concerned in the mining operations at the time of my visit, I could not learn whether any 

 coal was ever found at the bottom of No. 1 sha,ft, but if it was it certainly did not represent 

 the lower bed in the Belooch well, which was only 12 feet below that worked, while the 

 bottom of No. 1 shaft, only 100 yards distant, was 50 feet below the same bed. 



3i.(^. — The above, however, is not new. The same facts have been detailed, and the same 

 opinions expressed, in previous Keports, and I believe that- the principal object of my being 

 deputed to examine the locality was to endeavour to ascertain whether there is a probability 

 of other beds of coal of better quality and more persistent thickness being discovered in 

 the neighbourhood. I very much regret to be obliged to report that I do not see a prospect 

 of such being met with. 



I searched for a considerable distance around the old mine without finding in the small 

 ravines any indication of outcrops of coal. Doubtless far closer and wider search than mine 

 has been made with the same result. Several pits were sunk in the neighbom-hood by the 

 Officer of the Railway Company in 1859, in only one of which, so far as I could learn, coal 

 was met with, and then it was only one foot in thickness. 



In order to explain my reasons for disbelieving the existence of workable seams of 

 coal beyond the area thus explored, I must briefly describe the geology of the district. 

 #*** * * #* * 



The thickness of the variegated sandstones and shales exposed on the section of Run- 

 nee-ki-kot is not less than 1,200 feet j and the greater portion of this thickness is repeated 

 t\vo or three times by the rolling over of the beds. Only in one place could I detect any- 



