'60 THK SUBMARINE LEAKAGE, ETC. 



line ot groups of thermal and cold springs. Mr. Woods did not 

 •claim that the springs he referred to occurred at the outcrop of the 

 water-bearing formation, and, as a matter of fact, they do not 

 occur there more than elsewhere. Some, for instance, the largest 

 of them all, that on the Einasleigh, well out of Palaeozoic rocks. 

 So far, however, as they are known to occur within the boundary 

 lines of the Lower Cretaceous formation, they are, of course, 

 natural artesian wells, but their output is insignificant compared 

 with the intake of the bibulous beds near the base of the 

 formation. 



On the latter subject, as my colleague, Mr. Maitland, is now 

 at work continuing the delimitation of the lowest Cretaceous 

 beds between Hughenden and the Gulf, it may be well to record 

 his identification of the Blythesdale beds (the lowest and most 

 important of the intake beds) on the Flinders Eiver and Porcu- 

 pine Creek, with their base at 2600 feet and their top at 1900 

 feet above the sea level, and to quote a passage from a letter 

 ■dated 9th -June : — " The Upper Flinders cuts its way through 

 the escarpmenta of the Blythesdale beds, which here are of such a 

 ■character as to be admirably adapted for the absorption of and 

 transmission of water, and, in crossing the outcrop, has eaten 

 out a channel for itself, in some places 400 feet and 500 feet 

 ■deep, and not more than 30 feet or 10 feet across — in some 

 places not nearly so wide. Before entering the sandstone, &c., 

 the Flinders is a fine runnmg stream of considerable width ; 

 down the canon by far the greater portion of the water has 

 disappeared ; whilst at Hughenden I .could scarcely believe I was 

 crossing the same river." He adds : — " I am told on good 

 authority that the heads of the Dutton and the Cambridge are 

 formed of deep sandstone gorges, identical with those of the 

 Upper Flinders." 



In the paper before alluded to I pointed out that several large 

 watercourses — e.rj., Blyth's, Bungil, Bungeworgorai, and Amby 

 creeks, the Maranoa River, Hoganthulla Creek, the Warrego 

 River, Birkhead Creek, Torrens Creek, and the eastern tributaries 

 of the Thomson River, which cross the outcrop of the Blythes- 

 dale Braystone, while crossing that outcrop, absorb enormous 

 quantities of water, and that the streams, except in flood time, 

 cease to run beyond the outcrop. In the absence of measure- 



