130 
Mines and Mineral Statistics. 
in its entire state must have measured five feet in length, and of 
Glossopteris leaves about two feet long. 
In this series the Eev. Mr. Clarke, and Mr. J. Mackenzie, 
Examiner of Coal Fields, state that there are at least sixteen seams 
of coal, each more than 3 feet thick. The principal coal seam is 
from 8 to 10 feet thick ; it is the same seam now worked in all 
the large mines of that locality. 
Several faults are met with in most of the mines. One in par- 
ticular I may instance, where the seam of coal has been bent in 
two places 90 feet apart, one end having gone up 35 feet and by 
lateral pressure thrust over the other a distance of 90 feet, 
causing tlie part of the seam between the two points of fracture 
to be overturned, the whole forming in section like the letter Z. 
The direction of the line of fault is about north and south.. In 
various parts of the district trap dykes occur. In one mine where 
a basalt dyke, about 16 feet wide, cuts through the coal seam, the 
coal for 3 to I feet on either side of the dyke is much changed; 
the course of this dyke is north and south. In the collection 
exhibited will be seen a specimen of basalt attached to a piece of 
the coal seam through which it intruded. 
On the coast near the Nobby, Newcastle, may be seen several 
trunks ot trees up to one foot thick, with roots attached, starting 
from a seam of coal and embedded in the strata in the upright 
position in which they grew — fact worthy of record, showing 
the comparatively quiet deposition of our coal beds as contrasted 
with the drifted appearance of the vegetable matter forming the 
irregular and thin seams of coal which I have observed in some of 
the Victorian beds. Mr. Sclwyn has I’eferred to the drifted 
origin of the material forming the coal as precluding the proba- 
bility of the existence of workable coal seams in the carbonaceous 
series of Victoria. 
The upper coal measures in the Western District are about 480 
feet thick, resting conformably on the marine beds of the lower 
coal measures, and are overlaid by more than 500 feet of Hawkes- 
bury sandstone. Eleven seams of coal have been counted in 
them ; the lowest, which is 10 feet thick, lies about 25 feet above 
the marine beds, and is the same seam worked by the Boweufels, 
Eskhank, Lithgrow \ alley, and Vale of Clwydd collieries. 
Samples of coal from each of these mines are now exhibited. 
This seam of coal crops out at the surface on the railway line 
near Boweufels. It dips at a low angle of from 3 to 5 degrees to 
the north-east, and is therefore easily mined, and as it passes 
under the vast extent of mountain ranges to the north and east 
it will be inexhaustible for generations to come. 
The Hartley Vale Kerosene Co.’s Mine is situated about eight 
miles east from Boweufels. The seam of kerosene shale or oil- 
