"We immediately set about making the different arrangements for completing the objects of our voyage. The Colonel and I went on shore to examine the different strata of coals, taking with us a miner who pointed them out to us very distinctly. We found them running from side to side of the mountain of various qualities and degrees of thickness. At low water coals proper for fuel were to be gathered up from the reef before-mentioned, and when the tide was up we could work a pier. Accordingly, having orders to load the schooner...with coals and wood, I had the satisfaction to see her sail with a cargo of both on June 26th, eleven days after her arrival. "It may be imagined that coals were found in great plenty when I mention that the schooner sailed with forty tons, and that we had only one man employed to dig the mine. The spot where these coals are found is clear of trees or bush for the space of many acres, which are covered with a short tender grass very proper for grazing sheep, the ground rising with a gradual ascent intersected with valleys on which wood grows in plenty, sheltered from the winds, forming the most delightful prospect. This place might serve as a station for the woodcutters and colliers.* (* The point of land where the colliers were put to work was named Collier's Point by Colonel Paterson. Newcastle now stands on this site.) It affords pasture for sheep, its soil in general being good...Dr. Harris and Mr. Barrallier penetrated to some distance inland and met a native who followed them for some time and left them. Our native Dick also thought proper to leave us in an excursion we made with him into the country. Colonel Paterson discovered some copper and iron ores, the latter strongly impregnated and rich in metal. The seine was hauled and plenty of excellent fish caught, particularly mullet, with a fish much resembling the herring which I am inclined to think go in shoals. On an island in the harbour a tree is found, the quality of whose timber much resembles that of the ash, and from the great numbers growing there has given this name to the island. "Of this timber I had orders to send a quantity to Sydney, and had brought out sawyers for that purpose, but as every object could not be at once accomplished they were employed in the meantime in cutting down and sawing into planks a tree, the bark of which is much like cork. The timber...is light, close, and durable, and promises to stand against the effects of worms on the bottoms of vessels. I had a boat built of this wood which proved it to be good...this wood has much the resemblance of wainscot with us.