Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 2.djvu/438

394 The coal seam at Richmond crops out on the south bank of the coal river; it is about three feet in thickness, and sixty feet above the level of the Derwent. The accompanying sandstone and shales dip south, abounding in impressions of Ferns, as—

Sphenopteris lobifolia, S. alata, Pecopteris Australis, and P. odontopteroides.

About half a mile from the township of Richmond two small knolls of yellowish limestone crop out from the trappean rocks, dipping slightly to the S.W. and much decomposed, assuming a more indurated texture and brownish hue where in contact with the adjacent igneous rocks.

I visited the spot in search of organic remains, but no traces of any could be discovered. Fragments of fossil wood lay scattered about the surface of the neighbouring hills.

In my journey across the country after quitting Hobart Town, I passed Newtown, and crossed the Derwent at Bridgewater. On the left side of the causeway to the ferry is a limestone quarry, dipping 25° to the S.W., and four miles further, a small one of sandstone.

The river Jordan, a narrow stream, intersects the plains of Brighton and Bagdad. At Constitution Hill the sandstone again crops out, dipping S.W. at an angle of 25°. This hill commands one of the finest views in the island. Mount Wellington, with the village of Newtown in its lap, appears in the horizon at the distance of upwards of twenty miles, bounding a rich intervening landscape. The road from this forms a fine curve through the trappean rocks, round a deep wooded glen, resembling the "Simplon," near Richmond, and then continues over the plains of Green Ponds and Cross Marsh to Lovely Banks, a rich fertile tract, studded with lightly wooded knolls, and skirted by sloping banks of green pasture; forming a soft and charming landscape, to Spring Hill, which I ascended, and found the summit composed of greenstone. A fossiliferous deposit occurs here, in which the following