ABSTRACT OF PROCEEDINGS. xlix, 
The Collie Coalfield (about one hundred and thirty miles south 
of Perth) presents but few opportunities to the geologist, as the 
coal measures have suffered much from denudation, and are not 
now exposed at the surface. The coal has been obtained by boring 
and sinking, and the best seam is said to be about thirteen feet 
thick. The coal contains about eleven per cent. of water, and 
does not form coke. In character it very much resembles the 
Clarence River coal of New South Wales. The coalfield forms an 
artesian basin, and water under pressure is flowing from all the 
bores which have been put down. This fact taken in conjunction 
with the appearance and quality of the coal, point to its being of 
Mesozoic Age. Fossil plant remains are very scarce, but portions 
of two were obtained, and Mr. R. Etheridge, junr., after some 
hesitation, pronounced them to belong to the genus Sagenopteris, 
thus confirming the impression that the measures are Mesozoic. 
The Darling Range lying twenty miles to the east of Perth 
attains an altitude of 1,000 feet, and beyond this the country 
gradually rises to an altitude of 1,400 feet at Coolgardie and 
Kalgoorlie. The geological formation of this elevated tableland 
is granite and crystalline gneiss, with occasional belts of meta- 
morphic schists. At Coolgardie there is a considerable develop- 
ment of hornblendic rocks (amphibolites, diorites, &c.) and near 
the junction of these with the granite occur auriferous quartz 
reefs, such as Bayley’s and the Londonderry. At Kalgoorlie the 
gold occurs in micaceous schists, which, in depth, pass into quartz 
felsites (?) containing veins, splashes and pockets of calaverite 
(telluride of gold) and native tellurium. It appears that the 
matrix of the tellurides is an intrusive dyke of felsite (?) which 
has been much crushed and foliated, and that the micaceous schists 
at the surface (which contain free gold) are the result of the 
decomposition of this crushed intrusive rock. ‘The felsitic rocks 
are themselves intruded by dykes of diorite, and fissures or reopen- 
ings in them have also been filled by quartz. No lithological 
distinction can be observed between the rich and the barren por- 
@—Dec. 1, 1897, 
