Mines and Mineral Statistics, 
127 
thickness of 3 feet, of excellent paying dirt aud at a depth of GO 
feet from the surface. Oa one part of the workings, while siuking 
a shaft to cut the main lead, a very hard layer of cement 14 
inches thick was struck, but under it a splendid run of wash was 
found from 2 to 4 feet tliick, and IG feet below this again the 
main lead is worked. But the sinking to the present is tlirough 
all pipe-clay. The country at the GO feet level is a regular river- 
be<l, and in some parts there are fourteen feet of loose drift sand 
heavily intermixed with tin ore. Six hundred feet ahead of the 
Company’s present workings, the ground tested by means of 
boring rods has proved that, after passing through 40 feet of 
extremely hard rock or cement, and under that a few feet of 
pipe<day, excellent, if not far richer, dirt is to be found, proving 
without a doubt that it is the richest and longest lead of stannif- 
erous dirt ever struck at a depth in the Colonies. Tlic yield of 
till ore from the Vegetable Creek Co.’s mine for the past eigliteeii 
mouths is 3o0 tons, the average Aveckly yield is seven tons, with 
fortydive men and two horses.” 
“ At K angaroo Flat, Strathbogic Run, the tin is raised from a 
depth of 20 to 70 feet from surface. The sinking is through a 
volcanic basalt formation, aud the alluvial deposit is a river-bed 
drift with occasional juitchcs of cement, but with tin interspersed.” 
The drifts of the Miocene epoch, I believe, exceed all the other 
tertiary allu^aal deposits in the permanency and productiveness 
of their yield of tin ore. 
Ill taking a general view, therefore, of all the Tertiary or 
Caiuojioic formations, including also the Recent, we cannot but 
|>erccive their high geologic and economic importance, yielding, 
as they will continue to do, the chief supply of the gold aud tin 
production of New 8outli AVales. 
Mesozoic. 
Li the Northern District of the Colony, on the Clarence River, 
■occurs a series of coal-bearing shales, conglomerates, and sand- 
stones, containing fossil plants allied to Ticniopteris aud Pecop- 
teris (see specimens exhibited) supposed to be of mesozoic age. 
These beds have been dcsei’ibcd as being a long way above the 
Newcastle Glossopteris beds, and to have little in common with 
them. They belong to a diftcrent series, which may eventually 
be collated with the Mesozoic coal strata of Victoria. 
PALiEOZOIC. 
The PalcDOzoic rocks have been so fully aud accurately described 
by the Rev. AV. B. Clarke in his “ Itemarlcs on the Bedimtntary 
Rrmafions of New South Wales''* that it is needless for me to 
