NEW SOUTH WALES. 247 



and pure to pay for its exploration, and is about three feet thick. The 

 coal is pure, except a layer of one and a half inches of bluish sand- 

 stone. It is bituminous, and burns readily, with abundance of flame, 

 somewhat like kennel coal. It is compact, though less so than the 

 best Pittsburg and Liverpool, and is of fair quality, although some- 

 times impregnated with clay, which causes it to leave a large quantity 

 of ashes. 



Pyrites is occasionally disseminated in masses through it. Coal 

 abounds throughout the valley of the Hunter, appearing at the surface 

 in many places. 



The average quantity of coal produced is sixty tons a day, which 

 is piled up near the mouth of the pit, and thence sent to the pier on a 

 railway, where it is shipped to Sydney, Van Diemen's Land, and even 

 to the Cape of Good Hope. 



The new shaft in the valley is only sixty feet deep, the difference of 

 the two being in the height of the hill. 



Dr. Brook was formerly superintendent of this station, and gave a 

 droll account of the summary manner in which marriages were con- 

 cluded with the female convicts. If he saw a man who had just come 

 in from the country with a clean shirt on, he was sure he had come 

 for a wife, and the event always justified his surmise. The man 

 usually intimated his wish with a modest sheepish grin. The fair 

 frail candidates for matrimony were paraded for his inspection, and if 

 he found one whose looks pleased him, he put the plain question at 

 once, " Will you have me V 9 He was seldom answered in the nega- 

 tive, for marriage liberates the lady from the restraint she was under. 

 The banns were then announced by the parson for three Sundays, 

 when the lucky swain returned to claim his bride. 



From the known licentious and unruly character of the female con- 

 victs, it is not to be supposed that these marriages can be very fruitful 

 of happiness ; but as both parties had been felons, they are probably 

 as well matched as could be expected. 



The greatest difficulty the superintendent of a station has to con- 

 tend with, is the management of the female convicts. 



Captain Furlong, commandant of the garrison, was kind enough to 

 show the convict stockade ; it encloses a prison for the convicts, and 

 a guard-house for the soldiers. The convicts all belong to the iron- 

 gang, composed here, as at Sydney, of those who have been guilty of 

 some crime in the colony. They were kept constantly in irons, and 

 are employed on the public works. They eat and sleep in the same 

 apartments, and their bed is a blanket on the floor; to guard two 

 hundred convicts, there are seventy soldiers stationed here. 



