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210 Ww. R. BROWNE. 
municipal boundary, there is a vein of barytes in shattered 
quartz-porphyry. The vein has a maximum width of 14 
inches at the surface, but I understand it widens consider- 
ably as it is traced downwards. The dip is at 50° ina 
direction E. 19° N., which is more or less in conformity 
with the cleavage of the quartz-porphyry. The outcrop 
was traced by me for a distance of about 30 yards. A little 
excavating has been done and some of the barytes removed, 
but the work has not advanced beyond the prospecting stage. 
IV. Age of the Metamorphic Series. 
The stratigraphical position of the crystalline complex 
consisting of the schists, phyllites and quartzites, intruded 
by the mottled, Cooma, and blue gneisses, is a matter which 
has exercised me very much without any definite conclusion 
being reached. At the present stage of the work it is 
perhaps a trifle premature to discuss the matter fully. In 
the first place it is only in the area round about Cooma 
that the field relations have as yet been studied, whereas 
there is reason to believe that this crystalline series extends 
considerably farther north than Pearman’s Hill; the 
northerly limit of my investigations up to date; an examin- 
ation of this northerly extension may perhaps result in the 
discovery of some conclusive evidence. Secondly, field 
evidence may quite possibly be supplemented by laboratory 
investigation, and this latter is by no means complete. 
However, I have thought it good to make some mention 
here of this most important question. 
The principal difficulty, and it isa great one, which con- 
fronts anyone attempting to delimit the various formations 
around Cooma lies in the fact that no stratigraphical breaks 
are to be found, the whole of the old Palseozoic rocks being 
so intensely folded as to obliterate all traces of original — 
unconformities, if such existed. The prevailing dip of 
planes of schistosity and cleavage is easterly, but many 
