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formed, being in powder, is valueless; but, the coal can be used for steam boilers 
and household purposes, and for those metallurgical operations in which a particu¬ 
larly high temperature is not required. 
Professor Etheridge reports on a sample submitted to him:—“ It is a dull, 
soft, impure, sooty coal, ignites quickly, and burns to a fine ash, giving out great 
beat. This example, although impure, is not a lignite. It resembles 4 Mother 
coal,’ bands of which often occur in the coal measure seams, inter bedded between 
thick coals of the best quality. It appears to me to have been taken from near the 
outcrop, or at a little depth from the air. No woody, earthy or sedimentary 
matter occurs in this sample, and although far less valuable than Nos. 1 and 2, yet 
it is quite equal to much of the coal used on the North German Railways, and is 
(although inferior) a true coal-measure coal and not a lignite. No evidence of 
ligneous structure could be observed under the microscope.” 
The fossils arc all characteristic carboniferous, and although there are no coal- 
measure plants, there is no reason to doubt that the coal seams and associated 
limestone belong to one and the same age, i.e., Carboniferous. 
The Midland Railway Company have now put down several deep bores with¬ 
out striking any seams of commercial value, but as in no instance have they 
encountered the metamorphie rocks, this area still remains as much untested as 
ever. 
A belt of Carboniferous country, about 20 miles in width, extends from the 
Irwin River to the Northward, crossing the Greenough, the Murchison, the 
Wooramel, the Gascoyne, the Lyons, and Minilya Rivers, then spreading out. over 
the Henry, Ashburton, and Fortescue Rivers, and forming the great table-land at 
the head of the DeGrey. It is true that up to the present only carbonaceous 
shales have been found, and the fossils nil belong to the Lower Carboniferous or 
Devonian series, but when the enormous area over which these rocks extend is 
taken into consideration, and as they dip under the Mesozoic formation to the 
Westward, it. is highly probable that true coal measures do exist. 
Kimberley. 
It is also highly probable that coal will be found in the Northern portion of 
the Kimberley District, near Wyndliam, where the Carboniferous rocks are largely 
developed; quartzite and sandstone capped flat-topped hills, with shale beds 
beneath, attaining an elevation of as much as 1,000 feet. 
These shale beds must be of great thickness, for in the well at the base of the 
Bastion Hill they were found to go down over 100 feet, whilst they are seen in 
sections in the side of the hill 700 or 800 feet. It therefore follows that the only 
way to make certain whether coal beds do exist is by boring, which at. the same 
time would probably secure a water supply for the town. 
The Fitzgerald and Phillips River Coal. 
About the year 1846 Capt. Roe, then Surveyor General, and Mr. Gregory, 
Assistant Surveyor, reported the discovery of coal in the bed of the Fitzgerald 
and Phillips Rivers, on the South coast, about 100 t,o L50 miles East of Albany, 
but it unfortunately proved to be a poor brown coal. 
These deposits of coaly matter occur in a series of pockets or hollows resting 
on the upturned edges of the altered slates and quartz reefs, and are often full of 
angular fragments of quartz. It will not burn by itself, but, if put into a largo 
fire, smokes and gives off a strong smell of asphalt, and is Anally reduced to a 
firm, bulky ash, of a reddish colour. It is not a true coal, and will never be of 
any commercial value as a fuel. Both Mr. H. L. Y. Brown, F.G.S.. Government 
Geologist of South Australia, and the Rev. C. G. Nicolay, who visited this locality, 
report that no carboniferous formation exists here. 
