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The coal, on the south coast near Wollongong, reported by Clark was investigated by George Bass and the following letter is extracted from the Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol. III. - Hunter. 1786-1799., ed. F.M. Bladen, N.S.W. Government, 1895.
pp. 289-290.
“(Extract)
“GEORGE BASS TO LIEUTENANT-COLONEL PATERSON.
“(Banks Papers.)
“H.M.S. Reliance, Sydney Cove, 20th August, 1797.
“This vein of coal, or at least the northernmost end of it that we could see, commences about twenty miles to the southward of Botany Bay. The land there is nearly twice the height of the north head of Port Jackson, not a steep cliff like it, but has here and there small slopes and lodgments on which trees and shrubs grow. The sea washes up so close to the foot of it that it is no more than barely passable without some danger in blowing weather. About twenty feet above the surface of the sea, and within reach of your hand as you pass along, is a vein of coal of about six or seven feet in thickness; the rock below is slaty, but above it is of the common rockstone of the country. The vein does not lay perfectly horizontal, but goes on declining as it advances to the southward, until at the end of about two miles it becomes level with the surface of the sea, and here the lowest rock you can see when the surf retires is all coal. Here the bold high land gradually retreats back, and leaves in its front a lower sloping land, which, keeping the line of the coast, meets the sea with sandy beaches and small bluff heads alternately. In the land at the back of the beaches and in the small bluff heads we traced for about six miles along the coast four strata of coal from fifteen inches to three feet in thickness, with intermediate spaces of slaty rock of a few inches thickness.
“These veins extended, I think, much further along the coast than we had an opportunity of seeing them; how far they were inland I can’t tell, but it is probable they extend a considerable way, for I am much mistaken if it will not be found that the Blue Mountains wind round to this place, and of course end here. If so, this stratum of coal may possibly run through the whole range. Coals, you know, have been found washed down the Grose [River] and Tench [Nepean River].
“You will find yourself assisted in forming an idea of the situation of these coals by applying to the sketch * [Footnote - * This sketch is, unfortunately, missing.] of our excursions done by Flinders, where, in pursuing the track home of our little boat, you will find it run upon the beach near two rocky heads about half-way between Saddle Point [Red Point, Port Kembla]and Providential Cove [Wattamolla Beach]. That place is in about the middle of the two considered as one. You will perceive also in the sketch that the high mountainous land etched with a pen all the way along from the northward for a considerable way there falls back, as I have already described. Of the nature of the coal you will best judge from the specimen, which was unavoidably taken from the outside, consequently is rather injured by the weather. Access to the veins is rather difficult; there is no landing within several miles of them, except upon the little beach between the two rocky heads, and even there no boat ought to lay except one that can be beached. In summer, however, when the sea and land breezes are regular, and gales of wind uncommon, a boat might lay there for several days together, and, of course, in that time load a large craft, which might stand off and on in the meantime.
“You will be surprized to see how different the vegetation is to that about Sydney, or any other place we have ever before seen. Upon the sloping land in in front of the high bold (sic), I observed there several cabbage-trees nearly in resemblance a plantain, but yet a true cabbage, and a fern, which I can no otherwise describe than by calling it a cabbage tree fern, for it is to a distant appearance a cabbage, but upon a close inspection the leaves are found to be a fern, and beautiful fern. There were many tees that I am certain have never yet been known in this country; one, the most remarkably new, was about twelve feet in height, its leaves large, broad, and hairy, or rather woolly - I think their shape would be called cordate - and the smaller branches of it covered with long sharp prickles. Well I remember them. for in the blindness of my eyes I seized one of the branches and was handsomely repaid for my hasty curiosity by a handfull [sic] of them.
“GEORGE BASS.”
In a letter to the Duke of Portland, dated 10th of January 1798, Governor Hunter also makes mention of the discovery:
pp. 347-348.
“There was a considerable quantity of coal discovered southward of this harbour, * [Footnote - * Ante, pp. 237, 289. The coal was originally discovered in May, 1797, by three survivors of the party which left the wreck of the Sydney Cove and attempted to walk to Sydney. - Appendix A.] and I directed it to be examined; specimens were accordingly brought, which I sent to Sir Joseph Banks by the last China ship. This coal is very good, but difficult to attain, being a strata or vein of an immense steep cliff, near the sea, extending eight or nine miles along the coast southward, nor, unless we can find some little harbour near, can we hope to derive any great advantage from it.”
James O’Hara in his book The History of New South Wales, 2nd ed., J. Hatchford, Piccadilly, 1818; also mentions the discovery.
p.206.
“THIS year (1796) was distinguished by the discovery of coal in the colony. The people of a fishing-boat that had come back from a bay near Port Stephens, which is situated about seventy miles to the north of Port Jackson, brought in with them several large pieces, which they had found at no great distance from the beach, on the surface of the ground. Not long after this, there was found southward of Botany Bay, about seven leagues from Point Solander, in the face of a range of steep cliffs washed by the sea, a stratum of coal, in breadth about six feet and extending eight or nine miles along the coast. Near the tops of the precipices were also observed patches of the same substance.”
In 1815 Batty and Howell undertook an overland expedition from Sydney to Shoalhaven to discover the fate of George Wood, Jones and Dawson, three cedar getters who were overdue. They also reported the existence of coal as this snippet in the Sydney Gazette, 18th of March 1815 relates:
“A considerable extent of fine grazing ground is described by late travellers to be about the Five Islands [Illawarra]; to which, however, it would be thoroughly impracticable to convey cattle by land; and between Port Aitken [Port Hacking] and the Five Islands a fine stratum of coal shews itself for the extent of several miles.”
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