140 president's address — SECTION c. 



(b) The Sedimentary Rocks. — The sedimentary rocks, &c., include 

 the whole of the beds which lie between the ancient crystalline rocks 

 and the more recent strata. In spite, howeve;r, of the extensive area 

 occupied by the complex of crystalline schists, Cambrian fossils have 

 been as yet noticed from only one locality in the far north of Western 

 Australia. 



Mr. E. T. Hardman, of the Geological Survey of Ireland, was the 

 pioneer geological observer in the far north of Western Australia, and 

 his researches, carried out in the years 1883 and 1884, laid the foundation 

 of our knowledge of the geology of the Kimberley district. This 

 observer, however, obtained fossils from some limestones which have 

 been referred to the Cambrian. 



In 1891 Mr. H. P. Woodward made an extensive examination of 

 the Kimberley district, and added considerably to the observations 

 of Mr. Hardman. 



Ten years later, in 1901, in company with Mr. Chas. G. Gibson, 

 Assistant Geologist, I made a series of investigations in the King Leo- 

 pold Plateau when searching for a reputed goldfield on the Carson 

 Kiver, between the 15th and 16th degrees of south latitude. 



In the latter part of 1905 and the early mouths of 1906 Dr. Jack 

 visited Kimberley, for the purpose of inquiring into the possibility of 

 a,rtesian being obtained in the district. 



Mr. Woodward revisited Kimberley in the winter of 1906, and 

 ■examined the country between Mount Broome and the coast on the 

 west in the vicinity of Collier Bay and obtained, inter alia, a trilobite 

 from a dun-bufE colored limestone. The trilobite, which has just 

 been submitted to Mr. Etheridge, appears to very closely resemble 

 Olenellus. 



Mr. Woodward describes these limestone beds as dipping at angles 

 varying from 12° to 23° to the south-west. The basal beds, consisting 

 of limestone and conglomerate, contain fragments and boulders of 

 the schistose and granitic rocks which unconformably underlie them. 

 This observation is of importance in that, with the specific determina- 

 tion of the fossils he collected, hght may be expected to be shed upon 

 the age of the crystalline schists. 



We thus have a good many details regarding the geology of this 

 far north region, though as our knowledge has advanced it cannot be 

 said that the tangled skein has yet been unravelled. 



In the course of his investigations, Mr. Hardman gathered a suite 

 of fossils, which were critically examined by Mr. R. Etheridge and 

 Mr. W. H. Foord and Dr. Henry Woodward. 



Among the disjecta membra were the head and spine of a trilobite 

 belonging to the characteristic Cambrian family Olenellus Forresti, 

 and numerous pteropods — Salterella Hardmani — from a locality which 

 unfortunately cannot now be identified. The discovery of the locality 

 from which Olenellus was obtained by Mr. Hardman may be expected 

 to go a long way towards setting at rest much that is at present 

 puzzling regarding the geology of Kimberley. 



