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                                                                                                  APPENDIX No. 6.

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                                             Report of Surveyor J. A. Hall to the District Surveyor, Perth, dated 16th January, 1914.

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Classification of the country between Mt. Ridley and Israelite Bay. Sir,—The classification was carried out with the traverse as a base, but owing to the time lost through having to run the line through dense thickets, I was not able to devote as much time to it as I had hoped. As I had to come a good way south to get a start from Location 364, the first 15 miles along the line was in very poor country, consisting of sand plain and open mallee with numerous salt lakes, which made a larger percentage of third class land than if I had started from Mt. Ridley and run east. I was advised in Esperance not to attempt to get through that way owing to the dense thickets and boggy lakes. Again after passing Mt. Beaumont I was forced to turn south as I could find no water ahead. This brought me out of a fine run of good land into poor broken country, with sand plain on the south. Had I been able to run my line straight to Mt. Ragged, I feel sure that a much larger area of good land would have been located, but with the line where it is, I had practically nothing but third class land on one side. Altogether I classified 844,600 acres, of which 326,700 acres were first class, 125,800 acres were second class, and 392,100 acres were third class. For the purpose of classification I have adopted the following grades: Land capable of growing eight bushels or less of wheat per acre, third class; from eight to 12 bushels, second class, and over 12 bushels first class.