215 



On the Occurrence of Coal Detritus in 

 THE Valley of the Murray. 



By Walter Howchin, RG.S. 



[Read October 2, 1888.I 

 ABSTRACT. 



The locality referred to is in the Hundred of Angas, about half 

 a mile north of the South Rhine and three miles west from Rhine 

 Villa. The superficial beds consist of alluvial brought down by 

 the streams from the hills, which are but a quarter of a mile dis- 

 tant, the drift material being spread out as a low talus skirting 

 the escarpment of the metamorphic rocks. The fragments of coal 

 were first discovered at the surface, and %vere picked up in dry 

 watercourses which had been cut in the superficial gravel beds. 

 These fragments were noticed both in the loose material of the 

 creek bottoms and also exposed in section of gravel beds along the 

 two sides of the main creek. 



The surface alluvium rests upon clay beds of much older date. 

 There is first in descending order a reddish mottled clay about 

 five feet in thickness, and beneath the latter a yellowish sandy 

 clay of very uniform character and of considerable thickness. 

 Messrs. Stoeckel brought up small fragments of coal from a bore 

 in this clay at a depth of 80 feet, and the author found unmis- 

 takeable evidence of the presence of coal and carbonaceous shale 

 at a depth of 110 feet, in a shaft sunk about 200 yards nearer the 

 hills than the above-mentioned bore. This thick clay, in which 

 the coal fragments occur, is apparently of lacustrine origin and of 

 Tertiary age, and has been bared by the local streams after cut- 

 ting through the superficial gravels. 



The fragments of a carbonaceous character are mostly smaU, 

 subangular, and of good quality. The shale, carrying strings of 

 coal freely, bears a close resemblance to the coal shales of the 

 Hunter River district, New South Wales. The appearance, which 

 these coaly fragments present, indicates that they have travelled 

 no great distance from the parent rock, which may be reasonably 

 looked for within the limits of the Murray Valley. The depres- 

 sion of the valley of the Murray is no doubt of great geological 

 antiquity, and whatever formations may have been deposited in 

 this great depression since the early Primaries were raised and 

 contorted (supposing that they were not entirely denuded prior to 



