484 NEW SOUTH WALES. 
the foot of the mountain, there are two large stumps standing erect, 
one of which is here represented. The diameter exceeds two and a 
half feet. Some fragments of the trunk of a tree lie in the rock on 
the opposite side of the road. Many a passing observer has fancied 
that he distinguished the different parts of a single tree in these 
remains, and has pointed out a supposed resemblance to wood of the 
present forests. 
On the coast, a few miles to the south of Newcastle, near Lake Mac- 
quarie, as we were informed by the Rev. Mr. Wilton, there is a large 
number of upright stumps standing in the sandstone, and appearing 
like the remains of a former forest. The region has since been de- 
scribed by the Rev. W. B. Clarke, in a memoir before the Geological 
Society of London ;* he states that ‘one can form no better notion of 
their aspect than by imagining what the appearance of the existing 
living forest would be if the trees were all cut down to a certain 
level.” One of the stumps was five or six feet in diameter. They 
are imbedded below in sandstone, which has in part a cherty cha- 
racter; and the occurrence of a specimen of the common Glossopteris 
proves that the rock belongs to the coal series of Newcastle. 
IV. SANDSTONE STRATA BELOW THE COAL. 
We have remarked upon the gradual transitions which connect the 
coal rocks with the series above it. ‘The same observation may be 
extended to the strata below the coal; the two are conformable, and 
so pass into one another, that we can distinguish no distinct line of 
separation. 
* Proceed. Geol. Soc, London, iv. 161, 1843. 
