APPENDIX. 51 



lower 18-incli seam, on account of the main shaft being 

 timbered ; but the two beds examined were considered to be the 

 best. 



The extent of these lignite deposits is very limited, and they 

 hare now been sufficiently tested to show us that their quality is 

 not likely to improve by any further sinking or driving ; and they 

 may therefore be regarded as of no commercial value, so long as 

 there is any quantity of cheap firewood to be obtained. 



In conclusion, it may be as well for me to state my reasons for 

 recommending, in a previous Eeport, that any future provings 

 should be carried out under the direction of your department. 



They are as follows : — 



Because I found that large sums of money had been expended 

 by the Government in supplementing sinkings and borings in 

 difi'erent districts, at the recommendation of private individuals, 

 who had their own more or less crude ideas as to "good indications," 

 and where coal was likely to be found. 



Thus, some one in the Western Port District, not qualified to 

 give an opinion, but who happens to have lived in a mining town- 

 ship in Wales or Lancashire, imagines that the surface of the 

 ground here reminds him of a spot he knew there where coal was 

 found, and reports it as " good indications," where money should 

 be expended by the Grovei-nment. 



Another — in Cape Otway or Wincheslea — who by chance may 

 have been born in a coal-mining district in Scotland, sees a place 

 which reminds him of his native country, and forthwith proclaims 

 its " good indications," and a consequent appeal is made for 

 Government funds. 



A third imagines that if there are a few inches of coal in any 

 rock in his district, a " good indication" exists to justify sinking 

 through it in the expectatiou of finding a thicker seam below. 



I have already pointed out the fallacy of such reasoning. 



In another case, a borer or sinker passes through some black 

 shale which reminds him of a similar deposit over a 6- or 10- 

 foot coal in England, and therefore concludes that a like seam 

 will be found under the black shale here. 



I have, &c., 



JOHN MACKENZIE, F.G.S., 



Government Examiner of Coal Fields, N.S.W. 



D. (p. 38.) 



The extension of coal in this direction is rendered probable by 

 the fact that a seam of coal crosses the Macintyre, about nine miles 

 below Inverell, and is doubtless connected with the Warialda and 

 Gragin country. 



