29 
Artesian water is, as rule, met witli in the Mesozoic, or Tertiary formations, 
which rocks are more or less horizontally bedded and are little faulted or broken, 
but it has never yet been met with in highly Motainorphie or mineral country, and 
did such a supply chance to exist it would be most unpleasant for the miners, for, 
without they had extremely powerful pumping machinery, they would be flooded 
out if there were any supply at all, for if enough water will pass up a small pipe to 
supply a whole town how much water would a mine make F 
Artesian areas probably exist in many places in the interior, but never where 
there are outcrops of mineral country or granite rocks. Areas probably exist 
between Geraldton and the South coast and many places further North, also 
in Carboniferous rocks at Wyndham, Derby, and on the Gascoyne, the Murchison, 
the Irwin, and the Collie Rivers. 
CAINOZOIC. 
Recent. 
Alluvium of Lake Basin .—Throughout the interior there are a series of what 
are called lakes, though they arc in reality nothing more than large salt flats, 
boggy marshes, or clay pans, almost on a dead level, which drain into one another, 
and eventually, if the season has been wet enough, discharge themselves into the 
upper courses of one of the rivers ; but this rarely happens, as they present such 
an enormous surface for evaporation. One consequence following this is that these 
Urge flats nearly every year receive a fine covering of clay, upon which the salts 
contained in the water crystallize out, to be re-dissolved and added to from time to 
time, till in some places, which may be a little lower than the rest, or where some 
obstruction occurs to check the flow of the water, very large deposits of salt are 
formed. These lakes are surrounded by red clay flats, which also contain a great 
leal of salt, in fact, the whole interior is salt; and although sufficient rain has 
fallen since the elevation to destroy all traces of the marine deposits, yet as the 
water does not find an outlet to the sea, but is lost by evaporation on the clay 
pans, the country remains almost as salt as when first elevated. 
On the North Coast there are some extensive alluvial deposits, not generally 
!u the river valleys themselves, but mostly following the sea coast, or in other 
places what was once the bed of the river; they are not, as a rule, of any 
great, thickness, as outcrops of rocks are frequent. 
River Valleys .—This loamy deposit is formed by the rivers wearing away the 
°M rocks, carrying the finer material down from the hills and depositing it on the 
°Pen level country, forming large rich plains. These are often of great extent, 
and running hack from the rivers for a considerable distance, and are often very 
similar in character to those of the lake basins, but with this great difference, they 
r arely contain salt. They are best studied on the Upper Murchison, the Gas¬ 
coyne, or Fitzroy Rivers, where there are large clay and loam floats, often many 
jmles wide. They have probably been formed in the same manner as the lakes, but 
having been better drained the salt has been carried away by the rivers. Certain 
Tacts, however, still contain much salt, which gets replenished from time to time 
iy large discharges of salt flood water from the lakes at the sources of the rivers. 
All the rivers North of the Greenough form these large flats, but in the South 
jie rivers do not; forming, instead, small ones of clay, loam, sand, and gravel 
' lr °nghout their courses, which are very fertile. 
River Qtavels. —These consist of sand, gravel, and fragments of rock, and are 
°und in the beds of the streams, nearer their heads, as a rule, than the loams; also 
ln beds of all the large rivers, which are often as much as a mile wide. 
