AKJflTERSART ADDRESS. 29 



I may therefore add, for Professor M' Coy's information, that 

 the coal seams at Rix's Creek, which he distinguishes as of a 

 different epoch, by a line drawn below " shale with G-lossopteris," 

 because he thinks the lower do not hold that plant, do carry 

 Griossopteris ; and this fact I had confirmed in writing by the 

 present Examiner of Coal Fields, whom I requested to verify the 

 fact. Eix's Creek is only another example of what may be seen 

 at Stony Creek, at Mount Wingan, at Coyeo, at Murrurundi, 

 and in various other parts of the Hunter Eiver basin. And Mr. 

 Daintree, on my appeal to His Excellency Sir Henry Barkly, went 

 up to Stony Creek, examined the place, confirmed my statements' 

 refuted Professor M'Coy's notions of a reversal of beds, and 

 published his report in IS'o. 100 of the Melbourne Yeoman, 29th 

 August, 1863. Such evidence cannot be set aside, though it 

 remains unnoticed by Yictorian annalists ; and as to Glossopteris 

 there, it was that very plant which astonished the Professor, and 

 led to a most unjustifiable and indefensible misrepresentation of 

 what I said to him when I produced it as proof of a Newcastle 

 plant below the marine beds, and finally, also, to Mr. Daintree's 

 investigations.* 



(5.) I pass on now to some further remarks on the prospect 

 of Coal production in this Colony. 



It is the fashion to consider a patch of colour on a map 

 indicative of a Carboniferous formation to be tantamount to 

 asserting the existence of beds of coal under the whole area so 

 coloured. This is, however, a wrong conclusion. In a very large 

 portion of our Carboniferous area, no sufiicieut operations have 

 exhibited the proof that any coal, or how much, exists under the 

 surface. All mineral deposits are found to thicken, grow thin, 

 and sometimes to die out altogether, or to renew their strength 

 again, and there are plenty of proofs of this in New South "Wales. 

 Coal beds also change their character, as shown in the occurrence 

 of oil-cannel and other hydro-carbons, passing from or into ordinary 

 coal, andbearing still the prevailing phytologicalimpressions which 

 * >See Colliery Guardian, Feb. 20, 1869, 



