302 WwW. J. CLUNIES ROSS. 
reaches the conical hill (G) with a thin capping of basalt. Beyond 
this there is another similar hill which has lost its cap. There is 
then a gap of about a mile, and, after crossing the Blayney road, 
one comes to another outlier of basalt at Mount Apsley, or 
‘Cherry Tree,” as it is often called. This is rather an interesting 
hill. The top is about five hundred and twenty feet above datum, 
and the basalt is from fifty to one hundred feet thick. The drift 
underlying it may be well seen in two tunnels which have been 
driven in the hope of finding gold. As usual the pebbles are of 
quartz, well rounded, and there are also some large floating boulders 
of granite, several feet in length, but much decomposed. Only 
fine gold was found in the tunnels, but from some of the neigh- 
bouring gullies very fair gold has been obtained. 
Beyond Apsley, to the south-west, there is a conical hill with a 
capping of drift, but only a few boulders of basalt. Following 
the same line we pass over an undulating country, and after about 
two miles reach the last outlier of basalt in the neighbourhood of 
Bathurst. This is generally known as ‘The Mount,” from the 
well known residence of Mr. James Stewart at its foot. It is 
also called Mount Pleasant, although the village of that name is 
shewn on the parish map as some little distance away. There is 
a considerable descent from Apsley to the mount, the top of the 
latter being only about two hundred and fifty feet above Bathurst. 
The basalt is very compact, but, as no quarries have been opened, 
it is difficult to obtain fresh specimens, or to be confident about 
its thickness, especially as the drift appears to be very thin. It 
may be estimated as about one hundred feet thick. 
PETROLOGICAL CHARACTERS. 
Macroscopically the basalt is a blue-black, fine grained rock, 
but varies somewhat in texture, the basalt from some of the lower 
quarries and from Mount Apsley being the coarsest. There are 
nests of crystals of a green colour in some specimens, which I 
should have taken for olivine, but Mr. Curran appears to consider 
them as augite. A good number of small zeolitic spots are seen 
in some of the quarries, but they effervesce freely with acid and 
