1898] NOTES AND COMMENTS 13 



geologists, studying the relations of the soils to the underlying rocks 

 and investigating their capabilities. 



In 1893 this section made a very important discovery, which 

 it has since been carrying to a conclusion. A fruitless search had 

 long been conducted for deposits of mineral fertilisers, but in that 

 year a phosphate deposit was found in marine beds supposed to be 

 of Miocene age, in Hyuga province in Kyiishu, extending over an 

 area about 40 kilometers long by 6 wide. Within this area phos- 

 phatic marl occurs sporadically in nodular layers, chiefly along the 

 sea-coast. The nodules contain some 20 per cent, of phosphoric 

 acid, and a very small quantity of calcium carbonate, so that the 

 extraction of the acid is rendered more easy. An attempt is being 

 made to produce a super-phosphate by extracting the acid and 

 pouring the liquor on the powdered phosphate. The process has not 

 yet reached such perfection as to be a commercial success ; but experi- 

 ments with pot-plants have shown that the fertilising powers of the 

 new phosphate are considerable. The origin of this peculiar deposit is 

 not yet understood : it certainly is not derived from fossil vertebrates. 



One is always hearing about the depressed state of agriculture 

 in Great Britain, and we do not suppose that the mere existence of 

 a corps of agronomists would prove an all-sutficient remedy. But 

 when we see other countries, Germany, Eussia, America, Japan, and 

 the rest, making exhaustive studies of their soils, and ever searching 

 out new tracts capable of cultivation, or new substances of value to- 

 the farmer, then we ask — Where is our Agronomical Department ? 



Geology in Queensland 



Feom the Annual Progress Report of the Queensland Geological 

 Survey for 1895, just to hand, we learn that Mr Sydney B. J. 

 Skertchly was appointed Assistant Geologist on 29th June 1895. 

 Since then Mr Skertchly has been examining the Deep Lead of tin 

 at Herberton, the tin and copper mines in the Watsonville, Mont- 

 albion, and Chillagoe distiicts, the gold fields of Gate Eiver and 

 Marceba, and the Coal Measures of Eockhampton. Mr Jack in his 

 report mentions the occurrence of coal-seams at various localities 

 near Brisbane, and regards the district as likely to prove payable. 

 We have also received two reports by W. H. Eands on the Eidsvold 

 Gold Field, with one on the Croydon Gold Field and one on the Horn 

 Island (Torres Straits) Gold Field. Mr Jack reports on the Hodg- 

 kinson Gold Field and the Brovinia (or Brorinia) Gold Field. From 

 a note by Mr Jack on traverses of the Bunya Bunya Eange we ex- 

 tract the following sentences of more purely geological interest : — 



" The road from Macalister to Jimbour lies over black-soil plains 

 which the previous day's rain had made very heavy. The black 

 soil is evidently derived from the detritus of the basaltic high 



