NOTE ON THE DISCOYEEY OF OEGANIC EEMAINS IN 

 THE CAIRNS EANGE. WESTEEN QUEENSLAND. 



By ROBERT L. JACK, F.G.S., F.R.G.S., 



GOVERXMENT GEOLOGIST. 



\Read before the Royal Society of (jneenslaml, May 9, 1S96.] 



On 7th July last, I read before this Society some " Stratigraphi- 

 cal Notes on the Georgina Basin, with reference to the question 

 of Artesian Water," in which was brought forward evidence to 

 show that Pala?ozoic Eocks existed to the north of a sinuous line 

 extending from the western boundary of Queensland, near the 

 Tropic of Capricorn, to the Georgina River, and thence north- 

 eastward to the head of the Warburton ; this line has since been 

 somewhat more closely defined by the borings in search of 

 water, and still more recently a striking confirmation has 

 rewarded the labours of Mr. J. Coghlan, manager of Glenormis- 

 ton Station. 



Mr. Coghlan first sent me on 28th January last, a few 

 indistinct fossils from a locality which he described as " on the 

 east side of the Cairns Range, say twenty-five miles east of the 

 border of this colony, latitude 23 deg. south." . . . Their 

 state of preservation, however, was such that the most that 

 could be said of them was that they were impressions and casts 

 of univalve shells. 



On 24th February, however, Mr. Coghlan sent a further 

 collection from the same latitude, about thirty miles east of the 

 border, in which Mr. Robert Etheridge, jun., Curator of the 

 Australian Museum, recognised two undoubted Orthoceratites. 



Orthoceras is evidently by no means uncommon among the 

 Silurian rocks on the South Australian side of the border, six or 



