80 
“Below these rocks, again, is a thin bed of bluish limestone, seen in Nashs 
gully, close to its mouth, near the river bank, in the Surface Hill shaft, and also on the 
south side of the river near the Normanby Bridge. A few yards to the west of the 
outcrop of limestone a thick mass of shales occurs, dipping very steeply to the south- 
west, or in a direction just opposite to that of the Gympie rocks. These shales crop 
out in the road cutting leading down to Channon-street Bridge. The shales would 
appear to be outside of the auriferous area, no payable reefs having yet been found in 
them. They are separated from the Gjmipie beds by a ‘strike-fault’ running nearly 
north and south, the position of which is somew'here betvreen the outcrops of the lower 
bed of limestone and that of the shale in the road cutting. This fault makes all 
chances of predicting what strata will be met wdth below the lowest known beds 
impossible, for such strata, instead of cropping out at the surface, would come up 
against the fault. 
“ The shales extend westwards for four or five miles, when they are covered by a 
narrow belt of Desert Sandstone. These shales are black in colour, but, unlike the 
Gympie auriferous shales, they contain but little pyrites.” 
One of the faults already mentioned is the “ Smithfield Crosseourse,” which 
divides the area above described from the Monkland and Glaumire portion of the field 
further to the south. It runs E. 16° N., and has a downthrow to the north of about 
530 feet. “ None of the reefs on the south side of this fault have been identified 
with those on the north ; on the south side, how-ever, they would lie away to the west. 
Taking the average underlie of the Phcenix Beef at 27°, and allowing for a downthrow 
of 550 feet, it would bring it nearly opposite the Ellen Harkins Eeef, but it is impossible 
to identify them with any certainty.” 
On a line of section (E E, PI. 57) drawn nearly east and west on the south 
side of the Smithfield Crosscourse, “We meet with a few marked changes, chief amongst 
which is the absence of the first and second beds of slate. At some distance under- 
neath the thick beds of limestone and pebbly conglomerate are the upper shales 
identical with the Phoenix shales on the Phoenix line of reef ; this is the bed in 
connection with which the Smithfield, Columbia, Glanmire, Monkland, Great Eastern, 
&c,, &c., lines of reef have been worked; below the shales is an altered calcareous semi- 
crystalline greywackc, then ‘ greenstone,’ and below that again is the ‘ Third Bed of 
Slate,’ with its fine-grained greenish greywackc, with which it is always associated ; 
the two thin beds, known as the ‘ Eirst and Second Beds of Slate,’ which have been 
worked in the Hilton, Golden Crown, and Nos. 7 and 8 South Lady Mary, &c., being 
absent, unless the thin bed — in places not much thicker than a sheet of paper — in 
which the rich gold was obtained in the AYilmot and Bussell Beefs in the Wilmot 
Extended Mine represents one of them. It is, however, of small extent, and has not 
been traced south of that claim. The explanation of their absence appears to me to lie 
in the fact that the two beds in question are thinning out to the east on the northern 
side of this fault. The greywacke in which the ‘ Third Bed of Slate’ occurs is thicker 
here than on the northern part of the field. 
“ Still further south — that is to say, south of the South Ellen Harkins and Wilmot 
Claims — we meet with another important change. Here the Third Bed of Slate has not 
been met with on the northern side of the river, although the outcrop of this bed, or of 
one verv similar, may be seen a short distance west of the shaft of the No. 2 South 
Ellen Harkins Leasehold, which is situated on the southern side of the river ; so that, 
up to the present, no auriferous beds have been met with in this southern portion of 
the field below the thick Upper or Monkland Shales, and yet two of the deepest shafts 
are situated in this part of the field— namely, those of the Inglewood and the Great 
