May 21, 1914] 
NATORE 307 
o 
RECENT GEOLOGICAL 
AUSTRALASIA. 
>HE Australian Commonwealth Bureau of Meteoro- 
logy at Melbourne, in its Bulletin No. 8, publishes 
a memoir by Griffith Taylor on the physiography of 
Eastern Australia, in which it is urged that a repeated 
WORK IN 
shifting of the divide between the eastern coast- 
streams and those running towards the Darling or 
the interior has occurred during Cainozoic times. The 
former streams have in consequence been able to 
lengthen themselves by captures in the region of the 
divide, and a very considerable reversal of drainage, 
assisted by the outpouring of lavas, has taken place. 
The author pictures the rise of eastern Australia on 
an earth-wave that proceeded westward from the New 
Zealand area. The large amount of ‘‘unreduced 
plateau”’ on the crest of the wave is well seen in 
E. C. Andrews’s model of New England (New South 
Wales), which is described and illustrated by him in 
Proc. Royal Society N.S.W., vol. xlvi., p. 143. 
Andrews directs attention to the agricultural possi- 
bilities of the inland slopes of Eastern Australia. 
The Bulletins of the Geological Survey of Western 
Australia include, in No. 50, a general account of 
“The Geology and Mineral Industry of Western Aus- 
tralia,’ by A. G. Maitland and A. Montgomery, which 
is reprinted from a cyclopedia issued in Adelaide. 
The preparation of authoritative essays of this nature 
is one of the best functions of a public survey, since 
the ordinary citizen cannot piece together the history 
of his country from detailed memoirs. From _ the 
price-list given in this bulletin, which unfortunately 
mentions it as in preparation, we conclude that it can 
be obtained for about 2s. A geological sketch-map is 
included. 
The West Australian goldfields are described in 
Bulletins 41 (West Pilbara), 42 (East Coolgardie), 
43 (North Coolgardie and East Murchison), 46 (Yil- 
garn and North Coolgardie, southern portion)‘ and 
47  (Kanowna). The quartz-reefs that penetrate 
crushed and metamorphosed conglomerates in these 
areas are in close relation with intrusive quartz- 
porphyries, and E. S. Simpson and C. G. Gibson 
remark (No. 42, p. 64) that at Kalgoorlie sulphur and 
potash were introduced with gold, silver, mercury, 
and tellurium, through the influence of a late igneous 
intrusion which may or may not have reached the 
surface. It is pointed out that a solution of potassium 
sulphide dissolves both gold and tellurium. The 
illustrations of thin sections of the actual ore-materials 
are well produced and are of considerable petrographic 
interest. T. Blatchford and J. T. Jutson (No. 47) 
give a detailed account of the sheared conglomerates 
of Kanowna, and R. A. Farquharson discusses (p. 58) 
numerous types of igneous rocks, including a quartz- 
fuchsite-carbonate rock. This is believed to represent 
a former peridotite, of which chromite and fuchsite 
are the only unaltered relics. The type is also de- 
scribed in Bulletin 43, ‘‘ Petrological Contributions to 
the Geology of Western Australia.” It is clear that 
the official petrologist will render important service 
in determining the relations of the very interesting 
series of intrusive rocks, among which the ores have 
reached the surface. 
Among recent publications of the Geological Survey 
of South Australia, general interest attaches to L. 
Keith Ward’s Bulletin (No. 2) on the possibility of 
the discovery of petroleum on Kangaroo Island and 
Eyre’s Peninsula. The author concludes (p. 25) that 
the asphaltum thrown up on the’ beaches is brought 
from’ an unknown source by oceanic currents. 
‘‘Coorongite,’’ on the other hand (p. 15), which is not 
proved to be in any way connected with petroleum, 
NO 2325. Vor 63] 
_ appears to be still accumulating from local sources 
as a scum on lagoons, being left behind when a 
shrinkage of the water takes place. Incidentally, we 
learn from this inquiry that Kangaroo Island is be- 
lieved to have been isolated from the mainland by a 
system of Cainozoic fractures. ; 
J. E. Carne describes the somewhat fitful antimony 
mining industry of New South Wales (Geol. Survey 
N.S.W., Mineral Resources, No. 16, price 2s.). : 
The Geological Survey of Queensland in Publication 
No. 234 deals with the Etheridge Goldfield, near 
Einasleigh, where barren areas of granite, composite 
gneiss (p. 7), and Upper Cretaceous sandstone occur 
along the Copperfield River. Here again, as in 
Western Australia, quartz-porphyry dykes appear to 
have some relation to the gold-bearing quartz veins; 
but the latter areon the whole richer in the more per- 
meable adjacent rocks than in the porphyries them- 
selves (p. 13). L. C. Ball (Publication 237) describes 
the Mount Mulligan Coalfield, about fifty miles west 
of the port of Cairns on the Cape York Peninsula. 
The Coal. Measures, lying unconformably in gently 
sloping synclinals on uptilted grits and slates, are 
associated with the Glossopteris flora, and no Meso- 
zoic plants have been found. The field is roughly 
estimated to contain 84,000,000 tons of somewhat 
friable coal. 
The Geological Survey Bulletins issued by the De- 
partment of Mines in Tasmania now number thirteen, 
beginning with that by W. H  Twelvetrees, the 
Government geologist, ‘‘ The Mangana Goldfield,’’ in 
1907, and extending to ‘‘ The Preolenna Coal Field and 
the Geology of the Wynyard District,” by Loftus 
Hills, published in 1913. They are printed, like those 
of Western Australia, in a convenient small octavo 
form, with folding maps, and are in the main devoted 
to mining considerations. The gold ores seem to have 
been deposited in the veins that accompanied intru- 
sions of granite, and these occurred at the close of 
an epoch of folding between Silurian and Permo- 
Carboniferous times. The principal folding in Tas- 
mania is thus probably contemporaneous with the 
Caledonian movements of the European area. Bulletin 
No. 5 contains (p. 35) an interesting correlation of 
the Cambrian beds of Railton with those of Britain 
and America, and the Government geologist regards 
this north-western district as adding largely to our 
knowledge of the Older Palaeozoic rocks of Tasmania. 
In Bulletin 8, ‘‘ The Ore-bodies of the Zeehan Field,” 
an interesting problem is raised (p. 42) by the occur- 
rence of a glacial conglomerate dipping under 
‘“Cambro-Ordovician’’ beds, but probably as an in- 
verted layer of Permo-Carboniferous age. Bulletin 9 
introduces the excellent plan followed by the 
Survey of New Zealand, by showing on a 
sketch-map the position of the area described 
in relation to the region as a whole. W. H. 
Tweilvetrees, in considering the more basic and 
hornblendic envelope of the Scamander granite (p. 19), 
concludes that it is a product of differentiation rather 
than of assimilation. The memoir on the Tasmanite 
shale fields of the Mersey district (No. 11, 1912) pro- 
vides a valuable review of the literature on tasmanite, 
which is shown to be a resinous and somewhat sul- 
phurous shale in the Permo-Carboniferous (Glosso- 
pteris) series. The seam was formed in sea-water 
(p. 47), and its spore-like contents may be washed- 
down spores of land-plants or algae deposited with the 
silt. Pp. 40-54 embody a thoughtful account of the 
mode of occurrence and relationships of the material, 
and two photographs of thin sections are appended. 
The Mersey district, with its range of rocks from 
Pre-Cambrian schists to Cainozoic basalts, is made 
still more ‘interesting by the maps and sections pub- 
