470 NATURAL SCIENCE. June. 



geological surveys. Queensland, though behind certain of the other 

 colonies, has now made the very handsome contribution to geological 

 literature which lies before us, published under the authority of the 

 Minister of Mines. 



Mr. Jack, after ten years' experience on the Geological Survey 

 of Scotland, was appointed Geologist for Northern Queensland in 

 1877, ^^d since that time has been unravelling the geology of the 

 country and studying its minerals and mines. A number of isolated 

 reports have already been published by himself and his assistants, 

 and materials for the present work have been accumulating for the 

 last fifteen years. In 1881 Messrs. Jack and Etheridge, Junr., deter- 

 mined to combine their labours, and published an Australian 

 Geological Bibliography. Then followed a handbook explanatory 

 of the exhibits in the Colonial Exhibition of 3886, which in some 

 measure led up to the volumes which have just appeared. 



So great a mass of detail and so many subjects are treated of 

 that it is impossible critically to review the book, and we can only 

 give an outline of its contents. Speaking generally, for the strati- 

 graphical and mining sections, Mr. R. L. Jack is responsible, while 

 Mr. R. Etheridge, Junr., has undertaken the palaeontology. The 

 method of arrangement adopted is mainly stratigraphical, each series 

 of rocks, beginning with the oldest, occupying a separate section. 

 The minerals and fossils are treated of according to the age of the 

 deposits that contain them, instead of being relegated to separate 

 appendices, as is perhaps more usual. In many respects this 

 arrangement is the most convenient, but it is not altogether satisfac- 

 tory, for in the absence of any subject index it is very difificult to find 

 the references to particular minerals, unless one already knows the 

 age of the formations in which they occur. Persons, places, and 

 fossils are well indexed. 



The oldest rocks in which fossils have yet been found in Queens- 

 land are the Middle Devonian, though below these occur various 

 slates and schists of unknown age. Then follow unconformably the 

 Permo-Carboniferous, Trias-Jura, and Upper and Lower Cretaceous. 

 Between the Upper Cretaceous and the Lower Volcanic and Drifts, 

 here doubtfully classed as Miocene, there is a wide gap, and the real 

 age of the Tertiary rocks of Queensland is by no means settled, for 

 fossil evidence is absent. The curious deposit of auriferous sinter at 

 the celebrated Mount Morgan Gold Mine is considered by Mr. 

 Jack to be of Tertiary date, though the evidence is not conclusive. 



The section on Post-Tertiary rocks will be one of the most 

 interesting to the European geologist, for in these rocks occur the 

 remains of the wonderful extinct marsupials of Australia, and of 

 numerous extinct birds. Discussing the question of glaciation in 

 Australia, Mr, Jack writes : " No evidence of a Post-Tertiary 

 Glacial Period has ever, so far as I am aware, been met with in 

 Queensland, unless the presence of temperate plants on some of our 

 tropical mountains be taken to afford the necessary proof." Further 

 on, however, he mentions a recent visit to the celebrated glaciated rocks 

 near Adelaide, in company with Professor Tate. Mr. Jack, after 

 ten years' study of glaciation in Scotland, is a far better authority 

 than most of the geologists who have discussed the matter, often 

 without going to the spot, and we are interested to learn that he 

 " came to the conclusion that Professor Tate's observation was 

 correct in every particular, and, in addition, satisfied [himself] that 

 the movement of the ice must have been from south to north." 



