A^STS^IVEESAEY ADDRESS. 31 



"wliere wood and coal are necessary. Many tracts of this descrip- 

 tion have been traversed by me ; and especially in some of the 

 cedar districts is this clearing the effect of wanton wastefulness. 



If the time has arrived for a Minister for Mines to be ap- 

 pointed, would it not be well to extend his jurisdiction to Woods 

 and Forests also ? 



In the year 1863, in conjunction with me, the present Examiner 

 of Coal-fields published a series of sections of the coal-field from 

 Newcastle to Morpeth and Stony Creek into the lower coal 

 seams ; and this, on one sheet, was shown by him during the late 

 Exhibition. He also exhibited there a new series of sections,* 

 marked A to J consecutively, — showing the actual thickness and 

 depths of the coal-beds in the following localities, viz., Newcastle, 

 "Wolgan, Lithgow Yalley, Burragorang, at Eitzroy Iron Mines, 

 Kangaroo Creek, Mount Keira, and CoalclifF. The whole of 

 these are in the upper coal-beds, between the first out-crop and 

 the underlying Palaeozoic marine beds, — being the seams that the 

 "Victorian Commissioners insist on being Oolitic, though one 

 of the Newcastle beds contained fish which the highest icthyo- 

 logical authority in England considered Palaeozoic. In the large 

 section the place of this was shown, but in the new sections it 

 has been omitted ; *but the whole of the beds are shown to hold 

 Griossopteris and Vertebraria, and those underlying the marine 

 beds to hold excellent coal and cannel. 



The contrast between this display and the forty-nine Victorian 

 threads of coal is very striking. 



Mr. Mackenzie has ventured on a calculation as to the amou.nt 

 of coal in a certain area of country " known to himself," which 

 he considers to occupy " 15,419 square miles. One of the seams 

 of coal, 8 feet in thickness, under this area, should, he says, after 

 allowing one-third for loss, and waste in getting, <fec., yield 

 84,208,298,667 tons, which, at the present production of about 

 1,000,000 tons per annum in New South "Wales, would last about 



