72 STRATIGRAPHICAL NOTES, ETC. 



This threefold division is called in question by Dr. Cbew- 

 ings,* and also, as I learn from private letters, by Professor 

 Tate. For the present purpose, however, it is enough to note the 

 presence of metamorphic and palaeozoic rocks in the district 

 referred to. 



Mr. W. 0. Hodgkinson,t in the year 1876, showed that the 

 Cairns Range, on the Queensland and South Australian border, 

 was composed of " micaceous sandstones, porphyry, quartzose 

 rocks and limestone," and accordingly in my first Geological 

 Map of Queensland (1886) I coloured a small area between lat* 

 22 S. and the Tropic of Capricorn as " slates, schists, gneisses, 

 €tc." This classification was adopted in the Geological Map of 

 Australia, published by the Victorian Government in 1887, and 

 the portion of South Australia included in the Cairns Range was 

 designated "Crystalline or Metamorphic." The same map 

 shows, to the west of the Cairns Range, firstly, an area of 

 Cretaceous rocks, and, secondly, an area of" Tertiary or Cainozoic " 

 rocks extending to the eastern margin of the Macdonnell Ranges. 



Professor Ralph Tate has recently informed me (in a letter, 

 dated 18th December, 1894), that a EuompJuilus of the same 

 species as one found in the Upper Finke basin has recently been 

 found in the Cairns Range. We have, therefore, definite infor- 

 mation that palaeozoic rocks (probably Lower Silurian) reach the 

 borders of Queensland from the west. 



It has been known since the issue of Daintree's Geological 

 Map of Queensland in 1872, that the head of the Cloncurry 

 River was in palaeozoic or metamorphic rocks. Mr. Daintree 

 understood this to be an isolated area ; but on the Transconti- 

 nental Expedition (1881), I ascertained that these rocks crossed 

 the Nicholson and Gregory Rivers, and they probably reach the 

 Gulf of Carpentaria, near the Western boundary of Queensland. 

 There is reason to believe that these rocks form a portion of the 

 Selwyn Range, dividing the Cloncurry from the Burke River. 

 No further information being available at the time, I drew the 

 boundary line between the metamorphic rocks and tbe Lower 

 Cretaceous so as to include in the former the heads of Wills' 

 Creek and the Burke and Hamilton Rivers, in the Geological 

 Map of 1886 ; and from what could be gathered from Mr. 



* Trans. Roy. Soc, South Australia, Vol. xviii (1894), p. 197. 

 + North-west Explorations. Brisbane : By Authority : 1877. 



