West Tamar District, Tasmania. 163 



separated on a large scale economically from the ore, and it 

 forms in smelting two or more definite chemical compounds 

 in the pig iron, which render it very hard and brittle. The 

 chromium compounds obtained from the Company's pig 

 iron formed the subject matter of a paper by Mr. J. Cosmo 

 Newbery, B.Sc, and Mr. Frederick Dunn, read before this 

 Society on 12th December, 1878. 



On the east side of the Brandy Creek, or Cabbage-tree 

 Range, there occur some small leads, consisting of a reef- 

 wash from the " Tasmania" reef, which probably belongs to 

 the older middle pliocene period. Brown's party were on 

 good gold at a depth of 60 feet; while, only about one 

 and a half chains to the east, the Grand Junction Company 

 were down 118 feet without bottom, showing the existence 

 of a ledge between the two, with a very steep vertical fall. 



Several companies were at work sinking for a supposed 

 " deep lead" along the eastern foot of the Cabbage-tree Range, 

 with very contradictory results. The height of the surface 

 is about 75 feet above sea level. The Ophir Company had 

 sunk 100 feet, and had passed through a fine white fireclay 

 and a thick bed of lignite, containing a small quantity of 

 iron pyrites, some quartz pebbles, and numerous fossil fruits, 

 some of which have been recognised by Baron Von Mueller 

 as Spondylostrobus Smythii (Mueller), which occurs in the 

 "leads" at Nintingbool (Haddon), Beech worth, and Tangil 

 in Victoria, and at Orange in N. S. Wales ; Conchotheca 

 turgida, occurring at Haddon and Tangil in Victoria, and at 

 Orange and Darling Downs in N. S. Wales ; and Platycoila 

 Sullivani, occurring at Tangil in Victoria, and Orange in 

 N. S. Wales. Some leaves were also found, but have not yet 

 been described. Fossil fruits were also found in the Union 

 Company's ground. Although all the claims are situated 

 within 15 chains of the " Tasmania" tunnel, some have 

 lignite, and are tolerably dry (Ophir) ; others with lignite are 

 very wet (Union) ; some have no lignite (the Working Miners' 

 Company, only 3 chains south-east of the Ophir) and much 

 water ; and others were nearly dry. None of the companies 

 had then bottomed, and some were over 60 feet below sea- 

 level. The flat country, from the foot of the ranges, has 

 probably been an estuary in later tertiary times, and local 

 deposits of lignite have been formed in sluggish tidal inlets, 

 cut out at the junction of the silurian and carboniferous 

 rocks, since which there must have been considerable sub- 

 sidence. Some boring was being done to the north-east of 



