Farther south, they disappear beneath the Mesozoic sandstones, from which they again rise along the coast around Lake Illawarra and near the mouth of the Shoalhaven river. The Coal Measures have been reached under Sydney, by a deep bore at Balmain, which pierced a seam of coal 10 ft. thick, at the depth of 2917 ft. The Coal Measures are classified by Professor T. W. David as follows:—
| Ft. | |
| 1. Upper or Newcastle Coal Measures, containing an aggregate of about 100 ft. of coal |
1,150 |
| 2. Dempsey Series; freshwater beds, containing no productive coal. This series thins out completely in certain directions |
2,000 |
| 3. Middle, or Tomago, or East Maitland Coal Measures, containing an aggregate of about 40 ft. of coal |
570 |
| 4. Upper Marine Series; specially characterized by the predominance of Productus brachythaerus |
5,000 |
| 5. Lower or Greta Coal Measures, containing an aggregate of about 20 ft. of coal |
130 |
| 6. Lower Marine Series; specially characterized by the predominance of Eurydesma cordata |
4,800 |
| ——— | |
| 13,650 |
Geologically, perhaps, the most interesting rocks in the Carboniferous are the glacial conglomerates, containing ice-scratched, erratic blocks. Some of the boulders are encrusted by marine organisms and must have been dropped by icebergs in the sea. The northern limit of the glacial beds is in dispute; they have been described as far north as Ashford. The Carboniferous beds contain numerous sheets and flows of basalt and andesite. A syenite massif of this age occurs at Mittagong; and leucite has been discovered in Carboniferous basalts by David.
The Mesozoic rocks of New South Wales begin with the Narrabeen Shales; they are covered by the Hawkesbury Sandstones, which are well exposed around Sydney; and they in turn are covered by the Wianamatta Shales. The Triassic age of the Hawkesbury Sandstone is supported by the evidence of the fossil fish; though, according to Dr Smith Woodward, they may perhaps be Rhaetic. But the fossil plants of which the chief are Taeniopteris daintreei and Thinnfeldia odontopteroides are regarded by Seward as Lower Jurassic. At Talbragar there is a bed containing jurassic fish, which rests in an erosion hollow in the Hawkesbury Sandstone. The Talbragar beds, then, may be representative of the Jurassic; and the underlying Hawkesbury Sandstone may be Upper Triassic. The Cretaceous system is widely developed in the western part of the state, where it is represented by two divisions. The Rolling Downs formation is regarded as Lower Cretaceous. It consists of a thick series of shales containing marine fossils. It is covered in places by tablelands and ridges of the Desert Sandstone, the remnants of a sheet which doubtless once covered the whole of the Western Plains. The chief economic product of the Desert Sandstone is opal, which occurs in it at White Cliffs and Wilcannia. The opal beds contain Cretaceous fossils such as Cimoliosaurus. An occurrence of Upper Cretaceous beds occurs in the coastal district at Nimbin on the Richmond river. The Cainozoic rocks are best developed in the western districts, as the silts of the Darling and Murray plains. They include some Miocene, or perhaps Oligocene marine sands, formed in the northern part of an inland sea, which occupied the basin of the Lower Murray. The most significant point in the distribution of the marine Cainozoic rocks in New South Wales is their complete absence from the coastal districts; this fact indicates that while the Middle Cainozoic marine beds of Victoria and New Guinea were being deposited, Australia extended far eastward into the Tasman Sea. The Cainozoic series of New South Wales contains many interesting volcanic rocks, including leucite-basalts, nepheline-basalts and sodalite-basalts. In a basic neck of this period at Inverell, there are eclogite boulders, containing diamonds in situ; and it is doubtless from these basic volcanic necks that the diamonds of the New England tableland have been derived. The volcanic rocks occur on the tableland of New South Wales, and contribute much to the fertility of their soils.
The most important mineral in New South Wales is coal, of which the state has probably a larger available supply than any other country in the southern hemisphere. The coal-fields occupy 24,000 sq. m. The coal is present in such vast amount as to offer the possibility of very economical working of the abundant iron ores of Australia. Kerosene shale occurs in the Blue Mountains to the west of Sydney, in the Upper Carboniferous rocks. Gold is widely distributed through the highlands. It was first recorded by James McBrien in 1823, as occurring in grains in the sands of the Fish river, between Rydal and Bathurst; and though further discoveries were made, they were kept secret as far as possible. The first discovery of gold in mining quantities was made by Hargraves in 1851, at the junction of Lewis Ponds and Summerhill Creek, in what was called the Ophir Diggings, near Bathurst. The gold mines are very numerous and widely scattered, but individually they are mostly small and of no great depth. The total value of the gold raised since 1850 is over £50,000,000. The output of alluvial gold is now increased by the employment of dredges. The gold-quartz veins are mainly in the Ordovician and Silurian rocks; but some also occur in the Devonian, and there are impregnations of gold in tufas of Devonian age. Deep leads beneath the basalts occur at Kiandra.
The silver-lead mines of New South Wales are famous owing to the importance of Broken Hill. The mines there occur in gneiss and schists, which are probably of Archean age; the lode has in places been worked for a width of over 200 ft. The zinc ores associated with the silver-lead long lay unutilized, as the problem of their separation from the associated rhodonite has only recently been overcome. Tin is worked in the rivers of the New England tableland as at Vegetable Creek. The chief copper field is at Cobar in the north-western plains. Bismuth, platinum, molybdenum and antimony are obtained in small quantities.
The geology of New South Wales has been described in the Monographs, Memoirs and Records of the Geological Survey, which in the fullness and high scientific character form the most valuable contribution to Australasian geology. Pittman’s map of the state in two sheets, on the scale of 16 m. to the inch, was issued by the Survey in 1893. The economic geology has been admirably summarized in a work by E. F. Pittman, The Mineral Resources of New South Wales (1901). Numerous geological memoirs have appeared in the Rep. Austral. Assoc. for the Advancement of Science, the Journ. R. Soc. N.S. Wales and the Proc. of the Linnaean Soc. N.S. Wales. A systematic account of the minerals has been published by A. Liversidge, The Minerals of New South Wales (1888), and to him is due a valuable chemical study of the meteorites and gold nuggets. Contributions on the palaeontology of New South Wales are contained in the Rec. Austral. Museum, Sydney. A bibliography of the economic geography has been issued by W. S. Dun, Rec. Geol. Surv. N.S. Wales, vol. vi., 1899, and of the Cretaceous geology, also by W. S. Dun, in Journ. of Proc. Royal Soc. N.S. Wales, 1903, vol. xxxvii. pp. 140–153. (J. W. G.)
Artesian Water.—Before actual boring proved that the belief was well founded, it had long been scientifically demonstrated that water would probably be obtained in the Cretaceous formation which underlies the whole of the north-west of New South Wales; and it is probable that the artesian water-bearing basin extends much farther south than was previously supposed. It may, indeed, be yet found to extend approximately along the course of the Lower Darling. Artesian water is also obtainable in other than Cretaceous rocks. This is shown by palaeontological evidence; and some of the most successful bores, such as those at Coonamble, Moree, Gil Gil and Euroka, have pierced rocks of Triassic age, corresponding with the Ipswich Coal Measures.
Population.—The population on the 1st of July 1906 was 1,504,700, viz. 799,260 males and 705,440 females. The total includes 105,000 Chinese and 7500 aborigines and half-castes. Since 1860 New South Wales had added more largely to its population than any of the other Australian states. In 1860 the population was 348,546; in 1890 the number was 1,121,860. From 1890 to 1901 the population increased 238,083, or at the rate of 21·2%. By far the largest part of the increase is due to excess of births over deaths, for out of the increase of over 1,000,000 since 1860, only 350,000 was due to immigration. In 1905 there were 39,572 births and 14,980 deaths; these figures are equal to 26·78 and 10·13 per thousand respectively. The birth-rate has fallen very much, especially since 1899. In 1861–1865 it was 42·71 per 1000; in 1896–1899 it was 27·92, and in 1906 it had fallen still further to 26·78. The marriage rate for 1905 was 7·40 per thousand, and the persons married 14·80 per thousand. The mean for 20 years was 7·39. The chief, cities are Sydney and suburbs, population in 1906, 535,000; Newcastle and suburbs, 56,000; Broken Hill, 30,000; in 1901, Parramatta, 12,568; Goulburn, 10,610; and Maitland (East and West), 10,085. There are nine other towns with between 5000 and 10,000 inhabitants each.
Religion.—The proportions of the leading denominations in 1901 were:—Church of England, 46·6%; Roman Catholic, 26·0; Presbyterian, 9·9; Wesleyan and other Methodists, 10·3; Congregationalist, 1·9; Baptist, 1·2; Jews, 0·5; others, 3·6. Sydney is the seat of Anglican and Roman Catholic archbishoprics; the Anglican archbishop is also primate of Australia and Tasmania.
Education.—The state has in its employ 3135 male and 2424 female teachers, and maintains 2901 schools. The law requires that all children over six years and under fourteen years shall attend school, and in 1904, 220,000 children of these ages, as well as 39,000 others below or beyond the school ages, were receiving instruction, making a total of 259,000. Of this number 211,000 were in state schools and 48,000 in private schools. The majority of the private schools are controlled by one or other of the religious bodies. The Roman Catholic Church has 361 schools, with 1835 teachers and an attendance of 33,000 pupils. The total expenditure of the state on public instruction, science and art during the year ended 30th June 1906 was £911,000. During the calendar year 1906 a sum of £840,000 was expended on primary instruction. The fees from pupils
