323 
In a bore for artesian water, soutli of Laidley Bailway Station, samples sub- 
mitted to me from between tbe depths of two thousand and four and two thousand 
and fifteen feet wore of sandstones and shales. In this bore, the contractor informed 
me that the first fifteen hundred feet were sandstone ; from fifteen hundred to seventeen 
hundred feet, shale with hard bands ; at seventeen hundred feet, a coal-seam six feet 
thick ; from seventeen hundred to two thousand feet, shale and “ quartzite, and from tvs o 
thousand to two thousand three liundred and eighty feet, hard sandstone with black 
specks. The material I saw pumped from the latter depth when I visited the bore on 
17th April, 1890, was Ihe debris of a fine-grained hard sandstone with carbonaceous 
specks. The thickness of the Ipswich Coal Measures at Laidley is therefore at least 
two thousand three hundred and eighty feet, and as I am inclined to regard the coal- 
seam met with at seventeen hundred feet as one of the uppermost of those worked at 
Walloon and Ipswich, the total thickness is probably very much greater. 
When the coal-seam was struck in the bore a considerable quantity of gas rose 
to the surface. Nothing was ascertained as to the nature of the gas beyond the fact 
that it was not combustible. The water rose to twenty five feet from the surface, and 
even overflowed while the rods were being withdrawn, owing to the expansion of the gas. 
Mr. Henderson informed me (in a letter dated I3th January, 1890), that as the boring 
progressed the water receded for a few days to the level of the coal-seam, and after- 
wards rose to about seventy feet from the surface. 
When I visited the bore, I was much struck by the evidently large quantity of 
gas with which the water was charged. The sludge-pump was wound up from the 
bottom in exactly five minutes, and therefore must have travelled at an average rate of 
four hundred and seventy six feet per minute. A tube full of water, although^ open at 
the top, must, when hauled up at this speed through a column of water, be subjected to 
a pressure sufiicient to practically seal it. When the pump was landed, the relief from 
pressure was marked by the bubbling of the water, which splashed over the top for 
about a minute. 
On 3rd July, 1890, 1 received from Mr. Henderson, Hydraulic Engineer, a sample, 
taken from the Laidley Bore at a depth of two thousand four hundred and eighty feet. 
It was an indurated mudstone, very like some which occur in the Eolling Downs 
Formation. Mr. Henderson informed me that about that date the water was over- 
flowing at the rate of from fifteen hundred to two thousand gallons per diem. On 
27th September I received from Mr. Henderson a small sample, from two thousand five 
hundred and eight feet, of fine drillings, apparently the debris of a sandy limestone, 
probably from the Ipswich Coal Measures, and not from the underlying Bolling Downs 
Formation, as the previous sample had led me to believe. The bore has since been 
abandoned, without any considerable supply of water having been struck. 
The fossil plants referred to by Dr. 0. Feistmantel as coming from the 
“Talgai Diggings, Condamine Eiver,” are, as quoted by my Go\\e&g\i(i:—Ta.miopteris 
I>aintreei, McCoy, Sayenopferis rhoifolia (PresL), Feist., and OtozainUes Mandeslolu ^ 
Kurr. Lest the designation of the locality should create a mistaken impression, it 
may be well to quote from Mr. D’Oyley Aplin’s early llcports,» his descriptions of the 
district from which the fossils were derived. 
Progress Beport.—^‘ The auriferous rocks of Talgai are confined to the Mount 
Gammie Eange and the various spurs branching from it towards Thane’s Creek, on 
the west as far as the Sugar Loaf, and towards the Condamine on the east as far as 
* Progress Report of the Govermrent Geologist for South Queensland. 
18C9. And Report on the Auriferous Country of the Upper Condamine, &o. Brisbane : by Authority . ISbJ. 
