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work of the Survey is necessarily scattered through the various 
bulletins, annual reports and official documents, hence it has been 
felt that the time has arrived when an attempt ought to be made 
to gather and put into a concise form a systematic account of 
the geology and mineral and allied resources of the State, illustrat- 
ed by a large scale geological map of Western Australia, which 
shall show the present condition of our knowledge. Many in- 
telligent people who are not geologists desire to know something 
of the geological structure and geological history of the State, 
and to them as well as to others such a work will it is hoped, meet 
a much-felt want. 
The task which this literary work involves is a heavy one, 
and will naturally take a good deal of time to accomplish, seeing 
that much office work must be done on the Survey Collections, 
and much literature, etc,., abstracted before all the information 
at our command regarding the geology and mineral resources of 
the State can be systematically presented ; still, it is hoped that 
the map, at any rate, will be ready for the lithographer by the 
close of this year. 
Scientific Results. 
The work which has already been completed has achieved 
certain valuable results. Whatever new facts may have been 
contributed to science as a result of the Survey’s operations, have 
been solely arrived at in the prosecution of economic inquiries 
carried out in what I conceive to be a scientific manner. It is, 
of course, almost impossible to estimate the indirect usefulness 
of the work of the Survey, which is to be looked for both in the 
State and out of it : in Western Australia in the economic develop- 
ment of the State, and out of it in the influence it has on the 
advancement of geological science. The effect of its work upon 
the various industries and upon the wealth and prosperity of 
Western Australia is naturally that to which the Government 
attaches the greater importance. 
Time, however, will hardly admit (though there is the in- 
clination) of any detailed reference being made to many of those 
practical and theoretical questions arising out of the data which 
have been amassed ; amongst the more important results, how- 
ever, may be mentioned : — 
(a) The subdivision and structural features of the funda- 
mental complex of crystalline schists and other metamorphic 
rocks, which form the staple formation of our gold and mineral 
fields, have been more or less tentatively established. These 
form an important group of rocks, the members of which have 
certain features in common, occupying definite areas while various 
lines of enquiry point to these being of considerable geological anti- 
quity, probably Pre-Cambrian ; they also likely contain the 
materials for about one half of the geological history of the earth. 
