Mines and Mineral Statistics. 
183 
and 3,450 feet on the Blue ^Mountains ; the loTvest two stations 
and the highest being in the llawkcshurY, and the others in the 
Wianainatta beds above the Ilawkesbnry ; whilst at ISTevvcastle, 
the Urostbenes was the deepest below the sea. 
As necessary to explain still further the succession of strata, I 
introduce here some additional remarks on the ISupra-carbon- 
dferous rocks in the province of ?sew South Wales. 
Over the uppermost workable coal measures of that Colony, is 
deposited a series of beds of sandstone, shale, and conglomerate, 
oftentimes concretionary in structure and very thick-bedded, 
varying in com])osition, with occasional false-bedding, deeply 
excavated, and so forming deep ravines with lofty escarpments, 
to tbc upper part of which series I have given the name of 
Ilawkeshury rocks, owing to their gi‘eat development along tho 
conrso of the river-basin of that name. Tlicse beds are not 
less in the coast region than from 800 to 1,000 feet in thickness, 
containing occasional patches of shale, with fragments of 
fronds and stems of ferns, a few pebbles of porphyry, granite, 
or slates, and assume in surface outline the appearance of 
graijite, from the materials of which and associated old deposits 
tlieymust in part have been derived. On tho summit of tho 
Blue IMountains, as along the Grose Eiver, the thickness of tho 
series is very much greater. Patches of very small area contain 
coal, carbonate of iron, and other representations of miniature 
coal measures. 
Towards the base, patches of purple shales are frequent, and 
many ferriferous veins, with specular iron, hfematite, ilmcnite, 
gra])hite and other minerals, sometimes occur. 
In places, as about the “Yellow rock,” near the Upper Wollombi 
Biver, in Ben Bullen and above the deep excavation of tbc 
Capertee amphitlieatrc, salt and alum are found in cavities 
formed by decomposition, and in other places, as at Bundanoon 
Creek in the Shoaihaven District, at A])pin, and on the Bullai 
escarpment of tho Illawarra, and at Pittwater, north of Sydney, 
stalactites have been formed under similar circumstances. 
There is an enormous mass of brown iron ore highly carbonised, 
partly worked at Pitzroy, near Nattai, another on Brisbane 
Water, and a smaller, on the coast, a few miles north of Sydney, 
and other similar patches in intermediate localities. Tiiese are in 
part associated with specular iron, which occasionally lines tho 
joints of the sandstones close at hand with well-formed crystals. 
Tlie uppermost beds of this formation, especially where they 
become conglomerates, exhibit isolated summits imitating ruined 
castles, and have t]n;s been traced by mo at intervals all along 
the escarpmejits to the westward of Sydney, from the latitude of 
the Clyde Biver to that of the Talbragar, and in certain localities 
w'ithin the longitudes of that line and the coast. In the deep 
