Page:Handbook of Western Australia.djvu/77

Rh Greenough, in quartz reefs, and at Peterwangy, on the Upper Irwin in alluvial deposits. Silver is found in some lead ores. Specimens of tin have been found, and it may probably be discovered in large quantities among the red granites of the interior. Coal, often searched for, and still more often reported, has not yet been found, though veins of lignites, and semi-bituminous substances have. The most important metals are lead and copper, the ores of which, especially the former, are abundant and widely diffused over the surface of the Colony from North to South, but are worked now only in the Champion Bay district; iron ores, specular and hæmatitic, are found in abundance in many places; salt is deposited in large quantities in the lakes of the interior, and the lagoons of the coast, and might be made a profitable article of export. In these, also, gypsum is found, as it is on the flats in the valleys of the sandstone ranges. Materials for building are abundant everywhere; in some districts clays for brick making, as well as finer sorts for pottery, and kaolin for porcelain, as also fire clay in others; various rocks, granitic, gneissose, siliceous, calcareous, and cretaceous, the latter for lime burning, are abundant on the coasts, and are found in many parts of the interior.

From the catalogue of natural productions given above, it will appear that there are abundant materials for capital in money and labor to be applied to their utilization, with profit on both. The returns of the principal exports, given in another place, indicate that many of these, and not the least valuable, are still unutilized; for example, many of the woods, the pine timber of the North especially; the rattan, which is imported; copper, which is abundant, but as yet little worked; many valuable sand, lime, and other stones; while the