440 PBOCEEDINGS OP THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETF. [Apr. 11, 



Daintree* has verified and confirmed the views which I have for years 

 been maintaining, and which have been so surprisingly combated. 



The cannel from this locality has been subjected to distillation, 

 the produce of 180 tons of it being 400 gallons of crude oil; but 

 as the coke resulting from the operation is considered to be of ex- 

 cellent quality, it is of more value than would at first sight appear. 

 These beds of cannel occur again on the western side of the anti- 

 clinal axis, and are, it is supposed, traceable to the north bank of the 

 Hunter, where they also underlie the fossiliferous marine beds, eight 

 or nine miles to the north-east of Stony Creek ; and from below them 

 the lower marine beds begin to rise on the slopes of the Tangorin 

 Ranges. The specific gravity of this cannel varies, as does its composi- 

 tion; but 1*281 represents its density in a general way. 



3. Colley Creek. — On the north side of the Great Liverpool Range, 

 a little to the west of the lolst meridian and 80-90 miles north- 

 west from Stony Creek, occurs Colley Creek, in which have been 

 found two seams of a Brown Cannel, of somewhat higher specific gra- 

 vity than the black cannel of Stony Creek. It is very hke that of Reedy 

 Creek, but is full of grains of quartz, which give it, in places, an 

 arenaeous aspect. It occurs in blocks, which are superficially 

 decomposed into a lighter substance, but where unaltered retain a 

 clear dark-yellowish or light-brown hue, and split with a conchoidal 

 fracture, with a hard woody sound, when struck with a sharp axe or 

 other edge tool, the substance being tough and resisting a blow 

 from a round or flat tool. Mr. A. Loder, on whose estate it occurs, 

 sunk a shaft, and passed through a series of layers of black, partly 

 unctuous, clay, which appears to result from the decomposition of 

 basaltic rocks. A seam or mass of the cannel was passed in the midst 

 of these layers, which, like the cannel, contain numerous, distinct, 

 scarcely rounded, grains of quartz ; and these give to the clays a 

 porphyritic appearance, so that by sight alone one might be led to 

 consider them a decomposed porphyry. Between the crest of the 

 Liverpool Range, which is, on the Murrureaidi Pass, 2500 feet above 

 the sea, and Colley Creek, where the level is not more than 1600 feet, 

 the whole of the country consists of conglomerates and sandstones, or 

 of basalt and greenstone with trappean alluvial mud or clay. 



The Liverpool Plains he at a higher level than the valley of the 

 Hunter; and the Coal-measures on that flank of the Liverpool Range, 

 at about 1300 feet above the sea, are much disturbed, and also gulUed 

 by drainage-channels. And close to the Range a considerable meta- 

 morphosis has occurred in the Carboniferous rocks. 



It has been asserted that porphyry has intruded into these seams 

 of Brown Cannel ; but I confess I did not see any evidence of it ; and 

 I doubt whether rocks which exhibit the clearest proof of being in 

 part derivative from it, could be locally upheaved in the way sug- 

 gested. Nevertheless it is possible that porphyry may be near at hand ; 

 yet it is very unlikely that it could have any action in saturating a 

 seam of coal or shale with volatile materials. It is according to ex- 

 perience, on the contrary, that if there be any contact between these 

 * ' Geological Notes ' by R, Daintree, fiekl-geologist, Victorian Survey. 



