ROCK SPECIMENS FROM CENTRAL AND WESTERN AUSTRALIA. 293 



the other sixteen come from localities between the Barrow 

 Ranges and the Everard Range, i.e. between longitudes 

 127° E. and 132° E., and latitudes 25° S. and 28° S. 



Considerable practical interest attaches to the geology 

 of this region. In the first place it lies not far north of 

 the country to be traversed by the proposed Transconti- 

 nental Railway from Port Augusta to Kalgoorlie or Esper- 

 ance ; and in the second, it lies to the east of the great 

 belt of gneiss that forms the eastward boundary of the gold- 

 fields of Western Australia, and there is still the possibility 

 that new gold-fields will be found once the gneiss is crossed. 

 The rocks, however, are not of a nature to give us as much 

 information on the solid geology as might have been hoped, 

 since they appear to be in large measure dyke rocks ; on 

 the other hand, some of them possess great intrinsic 

 interest. 



The gneissose belt referred to has been recently traversed 

 and described by Mr. O. G. Gibson, for the Geological 

 Survey of Western Australia. 1 His map shows a large 

 granitic or gneissic belt lying east of the greenstone belt 

 in which Kanowna, Bulong and Mount Monger lie. The 

 belt trends to the north-east and is succeeded on the east 

 by the Tertiary limestones of the Hampton Tableland. 

 Lindsay's route in this part lay entirely within the gneiss, 

 and this accounts for the paucity of fundamental rocks 

 collected, for the gneiss area is largely covered by sand and 

 spinifex flats. Streich considered this part of the country 

 as "the most westerly part of the Great Australian meso- 

 zoic basin." The outcrops which he considered mesozoic, 

 viz., " a system of terraces, having a general N.W. and S.E. 

 trend, their strata dipping at a low angle to the North- 



1 The Geological Features of the Country lying along the Route of the 

 Proposed Transcontinental Railway in Western Australia, Bull. 37, Geol. 

 Surv. W.A.., 1909. 



