PROTOZOIC ROCKS OF THE NORTH OF W.A. 
53 
the basalt is absent. The indurated rocks forming the 
eastern escarpment of the range are evidently younger than 
the metamorphosed schists, etc., which contain the gold- 
bearing lodes and veins of the Goldfield and include in their 
number several bands of limestone of various thicknesses, 
which in my opinion correspond with the Pre-Cambrian 
Limestones in the N.T. and furnish the Knife Edges of the 
Argyle Downs. 
The other outcrops of limestone are generally described 
by Hardman in the following terms (p. 123) : — 
“ This portion ol the limestone country rises in a succession of low and 
almost imperceptible terraces into high table lands. One of these extends 
to the east of the Ord near the Cattle Station and another to the north and 
east of the Negri River, whereit is capped by Mt, Panton. 
“The Ord limestones are for the greater part hard and flaggy, rarely 
massive, usually grey in colour, sometimes sandy or magnesian, and seldom 
fossiliferous. In many parts of the district they are interbedded with red 
shales, marble and sandstones, the former of which contain occasionally 
layers of gypsum together with traces of rock salt. 
“ Over a great part of this country the limestone crops out in bare 
masses, cut through by gullies and watercourses, along which the rock often 
forms high cliffs and scaurs showing the stratification which dips at a very 
jow angle in various directions very distinctly . . 
The rock is said to weather into tabular masses exactly 
similar to those described by Mr. Brown at Noltenius Billa- 
bong ; and as that typical Cambrian fossil Salterella has been 
found by Hardman in the valleys of the Elvire and Ord 
Rivers and at Mount Panton, over the N.T. border, and 
further, as Mr. H. W. B. Talbot, of the Geological Survey 
of this State, obtained the same fossil at the Homestead 
on the Ord River Station a couple of years ago, in lime- 
stone that cannot be distinguished from specimens obtained 
in the Northern Territory, it is evident that several if not 
all the limestone outcrops in the Ord River district are 
of Cambrian Age. 
It may also be noted in passing that, as in the Cambrian 
limestone districts of the Northern Territory, the super- 
ficial deposits resulting from the weathering and disintegra- 
tion of the limestone form a rich red soil. 
The objection that Hardman collected and reported 
Carboniferous fossils from Mount Panton thus proving 
the presence of Carboniferous beds in the district may be 
met by the suggestion that there, as in various other parts 
of the Northern Territory, the Cambrian beds are capped 
by beds of later age. 
The presence and extent of the Cambrian Beds having 
been proved, we may venture to utilise the information 
gained, with a view of identifying and correlating the other 
beds with which they come into contact. 
