3 
mast have been struck by the aerolite on its 
downward passage to the earth, which evidently 
caused its fall. 
I regret that my limited means of transit did 
not permit me to bring this extraordinary phe- 
nomenon to Brisbane for this society ; but my 
iiext visit may enable me to do so, as I have 
planted it for that purpose. 
Two or three days afterwards I camped in a 
forest of sandal-wood, and made my tent poles 
and fires with this timber ; for miles round 
there is scarcely any other kind of wood, which 
when burnt, emits a very pleasant odour. 
It is of little practical value, I think, as the 
trees do not attain any great size, 10 inches in 
diameter being about the maximum, and the 
wood, when seasoned and worked up, soon 
loses its perfume, as this specimen will show. 
The following day I came upon a complete 
petrified forest, which I found, by the time I 
got through it, to be nearly 60 miles in extent. 
I may premise however, that I camped two 
or three times in this forest, and, as I halted 
early in the day, I occupied the remainder in 
general observation of locality ; and it is from 
this place that I brought many of my [geological 
specimens. 
The geological features about here are of the 
secondary formation, and allied to the carboni- 
ferous system. This system is very extensive, 
not only comprehending the coal measures 
proper, from which its name is derived, and 
which consists of alternating strata of coal, 
sandstones, shales, &c., but also embracing the 
mountain limestone, which is found to underlie 
the coal groups, and which, in turn, compre- 
hends alternations of limestones, shales, and 
imperfect beds of coal. 
The coal rock is a mass entirely of vegetable 
matter, which has accumulated in certain 
places, and afterwards been covered over, sub- 
jected to heavy pressure, and by bituminous 
fermentations has been converted into coal of 
several varieties. 
There have been two hypotheses advanced 
respecting the manner in which coal was formed; 
hut as so many geologists have written on the 
subject, I will refrain from going into detail. 
I may here mention that, while camped one 
day in the forest, I discovered a very fine seam 
of coal of immense extent, of which this is a 
specimen. 
The surface of the forest is entirely covered 
with <£ fossils of the carboniferous group,” of 
which many of these are specimens ; they vary 
in size, but these are among the smallest. There 
have been more than 300 species of plants dis- 
covered in this group of rocks, all of which are 
now extinct. Some of them are ferns and 
reeds, while others consist of large trees. 
I have traced whole trees 50 or 60 feet in 
length through this forest, with their limbs and 
branches perfectly visible, and their trunks 
varying from 12 to 20 inches in diameter, 
embedded in the shale and sandstone formation 
peculiar to this system, but all petrified. As 
usual with fossil substanoes, they are converted 
into the material in which they are embedded, 
hut preserve all their original lineaments, except 
that many of them are somewhat flattened, 
being the result of the pressure which they 
have sustained. 
I also noticed several large fossils, stumps of 
trees, in their original vertical position, from 2 
to 3 feet high, and about 12 inches in dia- 
meter, the roots being embedded in the shale 
beneath. 
The living trees of this part are chiefly 
bricklow, myall, sandal- wood, ironbark, and a 
variety of other hard woods. 
Emerging from this forest, the fine open 
plains of the Peak Downs completely change 
the aspect of travel. Here and there is a 
narrow belt of scrub, known as the bottle-tree 
scrub, with huge trees growing in them, resem- 
bling a lemonade bottle in form, some of which 
measure as much as 25 feet in circumference at 
their greatest diameter, and vary from 20 to 
30 feet high. 
In conclusion, I will briefly notice that gold 
was first discovered about thirty miles to the 
eastward of the Drummond Ranges, in a sandy 
creek. The workings of the gold-fields are 
gradually moving westward towards the range, 
where I am persuaded the centre of deposit 
will eventually be found. 
The gold is of a rich bright colour, much 
resembling that worked from the fields of 
Ballaaiat. 
With reference to the copper which is in this 
locality, Mr. William Keene, the eminent geo- 
logist of New South Wales, who has recently 
visited the mines, says the mineral bed, 
containing malachite, blue carbonate, gray 
copper, and hsematite and magnetic iron ores, 
extends in the direction of, from the appearance 
of the out-crops, nearly east and west. 
That after attentive examination he had 
come to the conclusion that these minerals do 
not exist here in the nature of lodes, or veins 
and cross-courses, but as a regular bed, oc- 
curring and deposited conformably within a 
wide series or succession of sedimentary clay, 
and quartzite chlorite shales ; and this bed 
belongs as much to the sedimentary series as 
the shales themselves, and does not belong to 
any system of lodes or veins, enclosed by walls 
in mere fissures or ruptures of the containing 
rocks. 
For this reason the metalliferous deposit is 
more regularly continuous than when in lodes, 
and can be traced by the out-crop at divers 
distances through the reefs. 
He also satisfied himself by examination of 
the shafts put down, that the metalic bed of 
iron and copper ore was reached ; and in the 
main shaft he found this bed, by measurement, 
to be 17 feet in thickness, composed of minerals 
varying from rich gray ore and fibrous rhala- 
ehite, both soft and indurated, to blue 
