NOTES ON SOME MINERALS. 83 



to E.S.E. from Inverell. They occur principally in the beds of 

 streams, or scattered over low sloping ridges, and in the beds of 

 clay and boulders, which form raised beaches along the creek sides, 

 in many of the localities. The boulders in these old beaches are 

 very much rounded and worn, and have been derived from the 

 porphyrites of the surrounding country, which before the 

 outpouring of the recent volcanic rocks, obtained as the principal 

 rock formation of the localities referred to. The best zircon 

 country is about Paradise Creek (County Gough), on many of the 

 low ridges, and in the beds of the tributary watercourses between 

 Upper Paradise Creek and the Swan Yale waters ; in Swan Vale 

 Creek and on the ridges on the northern side of same, extending 

 from the Swan Yale Post Office to eight or ten miles westerly ; 

 at Apple Tree Gully, fifteen miles north-east from Inverell ; 

 at Swarap Oak Creek, and Frazer's Creek, on road from Inverell 

 to Wellingrove • on road from Glen Innes to Inverell, two miles 

 west from crossing of Waterloo Creek, in Macintyre's Lane. The 

 zircons from these several localities mentioned, are usually more 

 or less broken or cleaved, and very much worn and smoothed, 

 but occasionally in fairly perfect crystals, of which figures 1 and 2 

 are representations. Some of the worn fragments, clear and 

 colourless, have been observed of from four carats to eleven carats 

 weight. The crystals are generally not much modified. All 

 observed were prismatic, but rarely with double terminations. 

 Colour, pale amber tint to colourless ; transparent, rarely 

 opaque, Sp. G. of six stones collectively = 4.547. The 

 accompanying minerals seem to be of a similar kind in all the 

 before-mentioned localities, consisting of smooth waterworn 

 fragments of milky quartz, quartzites, pebbles of reddish-brown, 

 yellow, buff, and black jaspers, and broken and worn fragments- 

 of pleonaste and sapphire. The pleonaste occurs rather plentifully, 

 in pieces often f- inch in size, and occasionally in nearly perfect 

 crystals. With the pleonaste, sapphire, and zircons, small rolled 

 very highly polished pieces of black hornblende are sometimes 

 found. 



Zircons are met with at Elsmore, Stony Creek near Tingha, 

 and at Hed Hill, on Cope's Creek, above Tingha, as well as in. 

 several other places in the same district, as the principal 

 constituent of a fine greyish sand, which is with difficulty separated 

 from the finer of the stream tin ores. Under a magnifier the 

 crystals are seen to be very perfect in form, long prisms with 

 double terminations prevailing. Colour, pale yellowish, to grey, 

 mostly transparent and of extremely brilliant lustre. 



At Tilbuster, three miles north from Armidale, in creek bed, 

 with gold and sapphires, generally in smooth almond shaped pieces, 

 or broken fragments, often five or six carats weight ; larger pieces 



