46 



•season the draw upon this well cannot "be less than 4,000 gal- 

 lons daily, and that amount never lowers the water in the shaft 

 more than about four feet. 



About half a mile down the creek, and from ten to fourteen 

 ieet below the level of the kitchen well, the boreholes of the 

 wool-washing establishments are situated. These two bore- 

 holes yield almost an unlimited supply of rather better water 

 than the kitchen well does. In both cases the superficial 

 spring of salt water was struck at a depth of from ten to four- 

 teen feet from the surface, which was dammed back in the 

 usual way by inserting piping in the borehole. One of these 

 boreholes is only seventj^-five feet in depth. The other, though 

 yielding a large flow of water, was continued to a depth of 

 160 feet, in hope of increasing the supply, but in both cases the 

 water rises to within eighteen inches or two feet of the sur- 

 face. The deeper one yields a little more than the other, but 

 the slight increase bears no proportion to the extra depth. 



The blue secondary clays, which underlie a covering of sand 

 from 20 to 30 feet in thickness at the borehole, occupy the sur- 

 face of the country a mile or so before reaching the creek 

 ftbout six miles north of the "William Spring. How far this 

 formation extends from the boreholes in a north-westerly di- 

 rection beneath the sandhills it is impossible at present to say. 

 This much, however, with confidence may be said, that these 

 -clays stretch all the way beneath the sandhills across the 

 •country from the boreholes past the William and Emily 

 Springs southward as far as Warrenei Creek near the Strang- 

 ways Springs. Their north-westerly limits cannot, however, 

 extend further than the site of the Moorumbuma Well, for in 

 that sinking they are not represented, neither are they in the 

 well at Anna Creek Head Station. 



I also visited the flat, some nine miles distant, in which the 

 Moorumbuma Well is situated. In this well the desert sand- 

 stone is the water-bearing stratum. The beds penetrated in 

 this sinking are as follows: — A surface stratum of sandy clay. 

 Beneath this clay the desert sandstone occurs, in which water 

 was obtained at a depth of 63 feet, and at a total depth from 

 the surface of 82 feet a copious supply of excellent stock water 

 was obtained. It is possible that the blue clays at the secon- 

 dary era may underlie the desert sandstone at this spot, but I 

 scarcely think so, on account of the great thickness of the for- 

 mation and the plenteous supply of water it produces. This 

 well and all others whose waters are obtained in the desert 

 sandstone seem never to rise in the shaft above the level at 

 which they are first obtained. This peculiarity leads me to infer 

 that waters with this feature are all of local origin. 



After crossing Moorumbuma flat we ascended a large sand- 



