126 OUR COAL AND GOAL POETS. 



to overcome by rounding the natural ledge on the cliff at a 

 height of 200 feet, and then to have further contoured two large 

 creeks, and two mountain spurs by a supposed available upward 

 gradient of 1 in 50, to bring the line out on the tableland, and 

 then the line was to- have passed on by a course along the 

 eastern slopes of the highest part of the Bottle Forest Falls for 

 Port Hacking Creek, to have come out on the Bottle Forest 

 Eoad, about two miles south of the old station and creek of that 

 name, and to have passed on by the seemingly very easy down- 

 ward gradients to Greorge's Eiver, &c. 



My late visit to the same neighbourhood with Mr. Stephens 

 has confirmed my oj)inion of the practicability of this line had it 

 been wanted, ov should it hereafter be wanted as a tributary to 

 the main trunk line, for getting over the mountains to the west- 

 ward, and to the coal at the dip. On Mr. Stephens' examina- 

 tion of the "coal cliff" he has found it Avill be necessary to 

 pierce this mountain range at an elevation of about 275 feet 

 from the sea for either of the lines to which this tunnel of 50 

 chains would be common to both, so as to soften down the gra- 

 dients of the new line towards Bulge and Port Hacking Creek, 

 which are within three miles of Coalcliff. This tunnel, therefore, 

 will be 75 feet higher than my proposed rounding of same of 

 200 feet, and would be very materially in favour of my after 

 contouring and ascents to the table-land, and where mj proposed 

 landing-place proves to be 70 feet lower than I had before esti- 

 mated; so that I should have gained 145 feet of elevation at 

 starting, and which would now only leave the difference of the 

 height of landing-place 752 feet less 275 feet for the elevation of 

 the tunnel, or only 477 feet in all. 



This comparatively easy rise out of the low lands would be 

 quite practicable by an upward gradient of 1 in 50, in the 

 shortest possible distance to give that necessary gradient. Could 

 we have done no better than this we should even thus have 

 secured the only other possible means of ingress and egress 

 across the Illawarra mountains by my first proposed course, at 

 the extreme north end of this sea and land-locked coal country, 

 where the geological dip of the strata trends to the northward 

 by a gradient of about 1 in 120 ; a dip from the south to the 

 north, which proves the coal seams and all the country to have a 

 fall of 660 feet in a space of about 15 miles in a straight direc- 

 tion from Mount Keira to Coalcliff — a geological fact which 

 renders it impossible ever to get a railway out of Illawarra by 

 any other exit than by the extreme north end, where the north- 

 erly line of coast ranges with its continuous downward dip of 

 about 1 in 120 northerly, is formidably intercepted by a coast 

 range (Bulgo), running direct east into the sea, with an elevation 

 there of 510 feet at its lowest part, and terminating blufily over 



