PAL^ONTOLOGIA NOV^ CAMBRIA 



MERIDIONALIS— OCCASIONAL DESCRIPTIONS OF 



NEW SOUTH WALES FOSSILS— No. 6.1 



Bj R. Etheridge, Junr., Curator. 



(Plates xl.-xli.) 



I. — Mount Wilson Well " Musselband." 

 (Plate xli., figs. 1-3). 



At Mount Wilson, on Dunlop Holding, about thirty miles 

 north-west of Dunlop Homestead, Darling River, a well was 

 sunk previous to 1881, to a depth of about five hundred feet, 

 as a means of water supply. In 1903 I visited the locality 

 and found the surrounding spoil heaps in a great measure 

 composed of a blue calcareous mudstone. This matrix is 

 crammed with broken valves and shell fragments of a small 

 bivalve, so plentiful as to almost form a " musselband," and 

 certainly a good "horizon-indicator" in this portion of our 

 Lower Cretaceous. 



When first sunk, watei" was sti-uck at four hundred and 

 eightj^-eight feet in tliis well in greensand and cong'lomerate 

 beds.- The strata assigned to the Cretaceous were first met 

 with at a depth of one hundred feet from the surface, consist- 

 ing of a hard blue clay with shells, pebbles and petrified 

 wood.^ This deposit is no doubt the same as met with in 

 Kapiti Well, No. 2, on Dunlop Holding, about twenty miles 

 west of Mount Wilson, where the "hard blue clay " extended 

 downwards to the three hundred foot level with one slight 

 interruption.^ 



1 For Nos. 1-5 see Eecords of the Geological Survey of New South 

 Wales. 



2 Wilkinson— Ann. U. Dept. Mines N.S. Wales for 1881 (1882), p. 133. 



■'■ Brown — Albert Gold Field — Artesian Water (Report, etc.). Votes 

 and Proceedings N.S. Wales, 1881, iii.. No. 4.27-a, p, 725. 



■* Wilson — Alltert Gold Field — Artesian Water (Further Papers) 

 Votes and Proceedings N.S. Wales, 1881, No. 1-18. 



