Geological Map of the Kimberley District Western Australia……

Andrew Gibb Maitland (1864 - 1951)

Maitland was a geologist who qualified as a civil engineer at the Yorkshire College of Science, Leeds. He was appointed second assistant geologist to the Geological Survey of Queensland and in 1888. In 1891 Sir William MacGregor engaged him to undertake a geological survey of British New Guinea. His reports and maps are among the first accounts of the geology of Papua. Maitland resumed his varied survey work in Queensland but became increasingly involved with study of the intake beds of the Great Artesian Basin. When H. P. Woodward (1858-1917) resigned as government geologist of Western Australia to join the mining rush, Maitland accepted the offer to succeed him in July 1896. He completed field-work in the gulf country before leaving Queensland in October, reaching Perth to find he had been gazetted government geologist from 1 November. He was an acknowledged authority on underground water and had early successes in the West such as locating bores between Geraldton and North West Cape that still supply water. His predictions of artesian water resources, for instance beneath the Nullarbor Plain, likewise proved valuable. Water and gold were then crucial to prosperity in the West and Maitland and his staff inevitably devoted much attention to the goldfields. He himself spent several long and arduous seasons from 1903 in the Pilbara region, mapping a vast area and seeking geological order among its ancient rocks. In 1901 he had worked in unknown parts of the Kimberley division as geologist to an expedition led by F. S. Drake-Brockman.

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Robert Jack Robert (1845 - 1921)

Robert Jack Logan (1845-1921) Logan was a geologist and explorer, educated at the Irvine Academy and at the University of Edinburgh, he joined the Geological Survey of Scotland in 1867 and by 1876 had contributed greatly to Scottish geology by mapping the coalfields. In 1876 Jack was appointed geological surveyor for northern Queensland and arrived at Townsville in 1877. In 1879 he became government geologist for the whole colony. He was president of the geological section for the first meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science in 1888, and president of the Royal Society of Queensland in 1894. He resigned his government post in 1899 to explore for an English company the metalliferous deposits of Szechuan in China. When the Boxer rising broke out he and his son Robert Lockhart made their way to Burma through 450 miles (724 km) of uncharted mountain country known in World War II as 'The Hump'. In 1901-04 he practised as a consultant mining geologist in London. He then returned to Australia and for five years was a consulting engineer in Western Australia. Jack's geological work for Queensland is outstanding in both quality and quantity and remarkable for its accurate and detailed observation. His recognition of the basinal structure of western Queensland and its potential for artesian water led to the first government bore in the Great Artesian Basin being sunk at Barcaldine in 1887. He personally mapped and appraised the Bowen River coalfield and coal prospects near Cooktown, Townsville and the Flinders River, and reported on twelve goldfields including Mount Morgan, Charters Towers and the Palmer as well as the Stanthorpe and four northern tinfields, the Argentine and other silver mines, the Chillagoe and Koorboora mining districts and the sapphire deposits of Withersfield. On a journey in 1880 he was speared in a surprise night attack by Aboriginals.

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