294 Geology of 



deposited. The latter were either derived from the disintegration of 

 these palaeozoic coast ranges, or formed, in many instances, of quartzose 

 sands of light tints, mostly the result of the destruction of the 

 quartziferous porphyries which hare travelled so far along the coast, 

 and have in consequence become disintegrated. I have before 

 observed that the conglomerates, consisting of boulders and pebbles o£ 

 quartziferous porphyry, are of local occurrence, but there is one 

 exception in the outlier behind the Thirteen-Mile Bush raDge (Big 

 Ben) to which I wish to allude. The base of the whole series in that 

 distant locality consists of a loose conglomerate made up of boulders o£ 

 quartziferous porphyry quite similar to that occurring on the eastern 

 side of the ranges ; and as this outlier is situated amongst the mountains 

 in a depression, the base of which is about 2,S00 feet above the level of 

 the sea, and is surrounded by heights of 4,000 to 5,000 feet, it is difficult 

 to understand whence the material for this conglomerate could have 

 been derived, except from mountains of much greater altitude than at 

 present exist, and from which the material was brought by currents 

 over the summit of the ranges west of the Thirteen-Mile Bush range. 

 A glance at the map will at once convey my meaning, and show how diffi- 

 cult it is to account for this occurrence in such a land-locked locality, 

 separated from the range consisting of porphyries by a whole series of 

 high mountains, unless we assume that the material for these beds 

 was brought from another locality closer by, now hidden from our 

 sight by younger deposits. In some localities, as, for instance, in the 

 middle portion of the Malvern Hills, these conglomerates are of 

 enormous thickness, about 6,000 to S,000 feet, and are interstratified 

 with ferruginous sands, fire clays, clay iron ore, shales, and small and 

 irregular seams of brown coal, the latter sometimes partly altered and of 

 no practical value. In other localities, including the Waipara, the lowest 

 beds consist of loose sands, more or less ferruginous, about 100 feet thick, 

 towards the upper portion of which small and impure seams of brown 

 coal are interstratified. These beds follow the contours of the ancient 

 shore line, dipping at the same angle. Thus, in the TTaipara these 

 sands and the brown coal seams dip 32 deg. to the east, in the Malvern 

 Hills 19 deg. to the east-south-east. "Whilst, as before observed, the 

 brown coal formation in the "Waipara is only represented by a few 

 small seams of impure shaly coal, in the Malvern Hills it is of large 

 horizontal extent, and many hundred feet thick, containing a number 

 of seams, of which several are workable. At its base, and still 

 separated by porphyry conglomerate, a bed about ten feet thick occurs r 

 consisting almost entirely of fossil shells, of which a large white 



