360 The N.Z. -Journal of Science and Technology. [Nov. 
Various references to magnesite, dolomite, and magnesian limestone 
have been found in the reports of the Geological Survey of Western 
Australia, but none of the occurrences mentioned are of importance from 
the point of view of this paper. 
South Australia. 
Mr. L. Keith Ward, Director of Mines, replied to my inquiry as 
follows * 
“ The mineral magnesite is widely distributed in South Australia, and 
the deposits are for the most part associated with the pre-Cambrian rocks. 
The principal occurrences are situated at — ( a) Robertstown, which is 
distant eighty-three miles by rail from Adelaide ; (b) Tumby Bay, where 
there are several deposits situated at a distance from five to seven miles 
from the port; (c) a locality in the Flinders Range about eleven miles 
due east of Port Pirie. This latter deposit was worked by the Broken Hill 
Associated Smelters to provide the refractory materials required at Port 
Pirie, but I understand that it is now idle. As far as I am aware, no other 
South Australian deposit of magnesite has been used on an extensive scale 
for providing the refractory material. 
44 Some of our chemical-manufacturers have recently been engaged in 
manufacturing Epsom salts from Australian magnesite, and I understand 
that some portion of this raw material was mined in South Australia. One 
firm endeavoured to float a company to manufacture and dispose of flooring- 
material, . employing oxychloride cement, but their experimental efforts 
were failures, and I have heard nothing further of the company. 
44 I have , never heard of any South Australian magnesite having been 
calcined except for experimental tests, and in these cases only a few ounces 
were calcined. 
“Your inquiry concerning the price of calcined magnesite f.o.b. at a 
given port of shipment cannot be answered at the present time. We have 
the raw material in South Australia, and we can produce, I think, a con¬ 
siderable tonnage of high-grade magnesite, but the absence of demand for 
either the raw or calcined material has been the reason of the backward 
state of development of these deposits. 
“ With regard to dolomite, very little chemical work has been done 
to ascertain the details. We know that it occurs with the non-magnesian 
limestones of the Cambrian series. There is also a superficial dolomitization 
of the Miocene limestone in the neighbourhood of Mount Gambier. There 
is a yellowish limestone which we suspect of being dolomitic in character, 
on the transcontinental railway-line, about seventy miles from Port Augusta. 
There is, moreover, a curious lake depositf of white chalk-like mud having 
the following composition — Silica, 6 per cent.; magnesia, 21-72; lime, 
24-36; water, 5-96 ; carbon dioxide, 40-10—occurring at the toe of Yorke’s 
Peninsula. This material has been sold as 4 natural whiting.’ ” 
At the request of Mr. Ward, Mr. S. A. Davenport, of 35 Brookman’s 
Building, Grenfell Street, Adelaide, supplied quotations for raw and 
calcined magnesite (lump and powdered). He states in his letter, 44 I am 
supplying raw magnesite to several firms in Adelaide from a district which, 
owing to its being close to a shipping-port, provides the bulk of the material 
* Several sentences relating to prices of magnesite and to other matters are omitted 
from the statement as quoted. 
f A similar deposit occurs near Hyde, Otago. See mention of this on a later 
page.—P. G. M. 
