178 Heni'ij C. Richards: 



Darley Stone. 



This is a very soft, fine-grained sandstone, of a light buff 

 colour. The quarries are situated about six miles from Bacchus 

 Marsh, on Goodman's Creek, near Coimaidai. Several small 

 quarries exist, but in all the stone is of a very poor quality, 

 weathering away rapidly, as shown by the blocks about the 

 quarries. The samples on which these investigations were car- 

 ried out were obtained from Cosgrove's quarry. This stone has 

 been used in the Parliamentary Library — lower portion — and in 

 the Treasury, to replace the weathered Bacchus Marsh stone, 

 but in both cases it has crumbled avray badly. 



Egtrton Stone. 



Fine-grained. — This is a fine-grained white sandstone of a 

 very clean appearance, and dresses well. It is not quite uniform 

 in hardness, due to the presence of thin hard layers here and 

 there through the stone, and is slightly discoloured in parts 

 by ironstaining. 



Coarse-grained. — This is considerably coarser than the above 

 stone, but also dresses well and works easily. It exhibits a well- 

 defined bedding plane, due to slight differences in the size of 

 the grains in the different layers. In appearance it very much 

 resembles the freshly quarried Sydney sandstone. i> very 

 friable, and must be regarded as a soft sandstone. 



Both the stones are obtained from the same deposit on the 

 east bank of the Moorabool Kiver, near Egerton. The deposits 

 — ^which consist of sandstones of Ordovician age — are tilted 

 almost vertically, and strike north and south. One can obtain 

 every gradation, from the fine to the coarse stone, but at one 

 point there is a good thickness of fine, compact stone, of uni- 

 form grain and colour. This patch was worked a little, some 

 sixty years ago, to obtain material for a house in the neigh- 

 bourhood, and the weathering of the stone in this structure 

 is excellent. 



QretndaJe Stone. 



riiis is u coarse-graine<l, light-coiouriMJ sandstone of good 

 appearance, and is made up of sand grains and occasional 



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