85 
THE COLLIE RIVER COALFIELD. 
The Discovery. 
About tlie end of the year 1889, when coal was attracting considerable 
attention in this Colony, Mr. David Hay, of Bunbury, became possessed of informa¬ 
tion which led him to believe that coal existed in the bed of the Collie River, 
at no great distance from Bunbury, and for this he set out to prospect with a party 
of men, and was rewarded by the discovery of some fragments of coal on the rocky 
bars at the lower end of a pool. As no sign of an outcrop occurred above, it was 
naturally inferred that the seam was to be found in the bed of the waterhole, and, 
as a dark patch could be seen from the bank, some men were sent into the water to 
dive, who brought up good samples of coal. Mr. Hay and his whole party then 
went in and collected coal in this way, until some hundredweight or so was raised. 
The Collie River. 
The Collie River is somewhere about 70 miles in length, taking its rise in the 
table-land to the Eastward of the Darling Range, at about 50 miles from the 
coast. 
For the first 35 miles of its course it flows over a sandy and swampy elevated 
plain, with here and there sandstone and gravelly ridges. For the next 25 miles it 
flows in a deep channel or gorge through the Darling Range, the rocks being hard 
crystalline schists and granite. 
From this gorge it emerges on the plain a little above the Collie Bridge on 
the Pertli-Bunbury Road, below which it flows over clay, sandy, and swampy flats 
to its mouth. 
At Australind, near its mouth, it joins the Brunswick River, and then 
together they discharge themselves into Leschenault Estuary, about 5 miles to the 
North-East of Bunbury, which town is situated at the mouth of this estuary. 
The Situation of the Coal Seam. 
There are two seams which outcrop in the bed of the river, the first or 
Western one being situated just on the Eastern side of the Range, and must be 
very near the junction of the coal-bearing formation with the older crystalline 
rocks, but no junction is visible, as most of the surface is covered by ferruginous 
sandstones and nodular clay stones (gravel). 
The second seam is situated about five miles higher up the river, to the East¬ 
ward, or between 25 and 30 miles nearly due East of Bunbury. 
W ORKINGS. 
At the first discovery a shaft has been sunk on the edge of the water-hole. 
It is now full of water, but, just showing above the water, at the Eastern end, a 
seam of coal is visible, overlaid by white sandstone beds. This seam also out¬ 
crops in the bed of the pool, but below the water level, and dips at an angle of 
about 20 degrees to the Westward, proving that the greater elevation has taken 
place to the Eastward in this district since the deposition of these beds. 
At the second seam a shaft has also been sunk on the edge of the pool, and 
which, like the first, is now full of water. In this, 13 feet 7 inches of coal is said 
to have been sunk through, but further prospecting was stopped by the large 
quantities of water which made in the shaft. 
Another shaft has been sunk further from the river to a depth of 35 feet 
through sandstone and shale. From this point a bore was put down, which proved 
the seam to be about 18 feet in thickness, and that several other small seams 
existed below it, some of which would be large enough to work. 
