president's address SECTION o. 141 



Dr. Jack, writing in February of 1906, regarding the locaiity of 

 Olenellus Forredi, says : — " The fossils described by Mr. Foord, in his 

 notes on the Palaeontology of Western Australia {GeoL Mag., March 

 and April, 1890), were collected by Hardman in 1883 and presented 

 by him to the British Museum in 1886. Hardman's trip of 1883, 

 described in his first report (1884), extended from Derby to the Leopold 

 Range. Hardman's label on the trilobite in question was — ' River 

 south of base line ' . . . ." 



" There are two base lines on Hardman's maps (F9-EB) ; at 

 Mount Campbell (lat. 18° 13', long. 125° 30'), and the other (WB-EF) 

 at the Hardman Range (lat. 17° 40', long. 128° 50'). If the Olenellus 

 was collected in 1883 the base line referred to must have been F9-EB, 

 since Hardman could not, in 1883, have mentioned a line which was 

 not laid down till 1884. On the other hand there is no river ' south 

 of base line ' (F9-EB) wnthin the limits of Hardman's work^ unless 

 Christmas Creek be meant. 



" There is a ' river ' (Hardman, in Irish fashion, called every small 

 watercourse a ' river '), viz., the Turner, south of base line, WB-EF. 

 It washes the S.W. side of the Hardman Range, but a good deal further 

 from the range than Hardman's map gives it. The base line WB-EF 

 could only be the one referred to on the supposition that Foord's in- 

 formation as to the date of the discoverv was erroneous — that ' 1883 ' 

 should read ' 1884 ' .... 



" But the limestone indicated in this case is classed by Hardman 

 as the lower member of his Carboniferous formation, and I saw what 

 is no doubt its continuation resting on a considerable thickness of 

 beds of basalt, which lie on the upturned Devonian of the Albert Edward 

 Range Olenellus is Cambrian 



" Altogether, we are confronted by so many contradictory con- 

 ditions that I am inclined to conclude that the fossil must be ignored 

 as having come from a locality unidentifiable." 



Despite the fact of poor localisation of Mr. Hardman's fossils, it 

 may, I think, be taken for granted that Cambrian beds do occur some- 

 where in Kimberley, about south latitude 18°. The recent discovery 

 of Olenellus and Salterella in the limestones of the Daly River, in the 

 Northern Territory, by Messrs. Brown and Basedow, is of considerable 

 geological importance, indicating a somewhat wide distribution of 

 Cambrian strata in Northern Australia, and makes the solution of the 

 Hardman puzzle almost imperative, and more especially so in the 

 light of Mr. Woodward's recent discovery in the Napier Range. 



By far the largest area of the Kimberley division is occupied by 

 a formation which extends from Mount Hopeless, near ColUer Bay, 

 via Mounts Hart, Broome, the Miieller, Saw, and Deception Ranges, 

 Goose Hill, near Wyndham, to the South Australian border. These 

 beds, which rest with a violent unconformity upon the crystalline 

 schists, were provisionally referred by Mr. Hardman to the Devonian. 



Considerable confusion has arisen, as has recently been pointed 

 out by Dr. Jack, in a report on the Kimberley district now going through 



