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CUMBERLAND BAY.
[Chap. IV.
1840
ness, although numerous fragments frequently occurred scattered about the watercourses. I found a solitary piece of fossil wood, highly silicified, at the upper margin of the lake—the only vestige met with in Cumberland Bay and its vicinity. A small lump of coal was also found near the lower end of the lake, but neither could be found in situ. The valley continued in a S.S.W. direction, between the same range, for four miles above the lake.
"In the small bay on the N. side of Cumberland Bay is a smooth undulating hill, covered with loose fragments of slate, piled up to 150 feet in height, and completely insulated from the greenstone range at the back. Some of the fragments of this remarkable looking 'arenaceous slate,' with red markings, bore a striking resemblance to the impressions of sea-weed. On the opposite or west side of the bay another 'slate hill' forms a kind of belt in the trap range, 600 feet high, covered with loose fragments from the summit to the base, through which amorphous masses protrude in places. At the line of junction with the basalt, where a watercourse runs down, it assumes a prismatic tendency. About two thirds up is a vein of friable slaty kind of slag, a foot deep, and ten feet in length, covered by the basalt, and in all probability a bed of coal exists beneath. The slaty fragments were not marked with the sea-weed-like impressions, as in the hill on the opposite side. On the south side of Cumberland Bay, near the upper end, is another of these remarkable hills, having a smooth marbled appearance at a distance, the light colour forming a great