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In these rocks occur rich lodes of lead and copper, which may be traced for 
several miles on the surface by means of their clay ironstone caps. Their strike is 
about 30° East of North, and their dip 80° to 90° North-West. Numerous quartz 
reefs are found as cross courses, and at the point of their intersection the true or 
“ right” lodes have always proved extra rich, although the reefs themselves do not 
carry any metal. As none of these mines are now being worked, it is impossible 
to find out either the relative ages or the relations of the veins to one another. 
The most remarkable thing about this district is the finding of lead so 
abundantly in such a highly altered country, and this can only be explained on 
the assumption that the infilling of the lodes took place at a date more recent than 
that of the metamorphism of the rocks. 
Immediately surrounding the town of Geraldton are high steep sand ridges, 
which have been formed by the action of the wind, and are a great source of 
trouble, for, when strong winds blow from one quarter for a considerable time, 
a quantity of the sand is shifted. This is being overcome by bushing them up, 
when it is found that vegetation thus protected will spring up, and when once 
fairly established, prevents these dunes from shifting. 
A good supply of water fit for brewing and making aerated waters is found at 
the base of these lulls at no great depth from the surface, but the water in the 
town nearer the coast is very hard, and sometimes even brackish. 
At the back of these sand hills, or to the Eastward, are low coastal limestone 
hills, similar to those met with all down this coast. 
To the Northward, across the valley of the Chapman River, and the back flats 
of the Greenough, is a broken table-land, of Mesozoic age, presenting a series of 
bold flat-topped hills, most of which are marquee shaped, but here and there 
isolated peaks are also seen. 
To the Eastward of Geraldton are the two fine alluvial flats of the Greenough 
River. They are extremely low, and when heavy rains fall in the interior they are 
subjected to’floods, by which fences, houses, and stock are washed away. These 
flats are bounded ou the North-West by the broken table-land, on the South by 
the low coastal limestone ridges, whilst they are separated from one another by a 
low sandy ridge. 
The Greenough river is about 150 miles in length, and flows in a South-Westerly 
direction, discharging itself into the sea a little South of Champion Bay. Follow¬ 
ing up its course to the North-East, it leaves the flats and flows in a deep channel 
through high sandplain country, the underlying rocks of which, exposed in the 
cliffs beside the river bed, are white and coloured soft shaley sandstones and dark- 
coloured argillaceous shales, very similar in character to the Carboniferous series 
exposed in the bed of the Irwin River, but the fossiliferous limestones are not here 
met with. 
About 60 miles from the coast this formation gives place to the old crystalline 
rocks, and the river flows close under the South side of the bold Tailoring Peak 
(which is the only hill in this district), and so on in a more easterly direction to 
Yuin, where some small gold-bearing reefs were found. 
At this point the valley opens out into the fine alluvial flats of the Murchison 
District, with here and there low ridges of Metamorphic and Granitic rocks, often 
capped with more recent deposits of ferruginous sandstones. 
Further to the Eastward the river branches out over these plains, taking its 
rise near the head of the Sandford (a branch of the Murchison), where several 
bold granite hills rise abruptly out of the plains. This belt of granite dykes 
extends in a Southerly direction as far as the South coast, and it is immediately 
to the Eastward of this that a line of Metamorphic rock, with very rich auriferous 
reefs, is met with. 
