BY W. N. BENSON. 



589 



proved to contain fossils. Possibly these are the clays which Wil- 

 kinson describes as being under "the Sugarloaf," but as that name 

 is applied to every hill in the vicinity, one cannot be certain. 



The Mount Sheba Series is, perhaps, the most continuous and 

 important, as being the most largely worked for gold. They occur 

 under a thin capping of basalt, at the head of Oakenville Creek, 

 where they are largely mixed with clay and sand. Just below the 

 basalt in Dangar's Gully, a southern tributary of Oakenville Creek, 

 a tunnel has been driven in soft, carbonaceous shales partially 

 baked by the basalt. These are full of plant-impressions. Across 

 the valley, a small face of gravel is exposed in the Mount Pleasant 

 workings (more usually known as Mount Misery, the name having 

 been altered since the abandonment of the mine in winter time). 

 Here the gravel is about 80 feet thick, and not very coarse, with 



Fig.4. — Cross-section through Nundle District to illustrate 

 relation of physiography to geological structure. 



clay and sand, and leaf -impressions in limonite. The gravels con- 

 tinue below the basalt, were opened up at Deep Lead Creek, half a 

 mile to the west, and a huge face has been sluiced away at the head 

 of Butcher's Gully, the Red Hill Workings. Here, the gravels, 

 fine, coarse and sandy, are about 100 feet in thickness. A fault of 

 200 feet throw (approximately) separates Mount Sheba from this. 

 It lies to the west again, and has a similar, huge, sluiced face. A 

 smaller sluicing occurs on the southern side of the same patch of 

 gravel. 



The occurrence at Mount Ephraim, south of the Sheba Sugar- 

 loaf, is peculiar, and needs further investigation before a descrip- 



