100 A FEW SCIENTIFIC NOTES, ETC. 



been a wide estuarine mouth of the Brisbane River, instead of 

 as at present a moderately wide sub-tidal creek. And consider- 

 ing the number of sub-tidal creeks — Norman Creek, Breakfast 

 Creek, etc. — may it not be that in earlier times these formed 

 portions of many channels and interbranching water courses at 

 the mouth of a large estuarine river. If so I can understand 

 how the chain of water holes in my orchard, and which show 

 superficial deposits of twelve feet deep, were at that time the bed 

 of a fairly sized stream tributary. 



Another consideration is worthy of notice — the question of 

 time. In my orchard the superficial deposits, that is of the human 

 period (the underlying rocks being mesozoic) are only twelve or so 

 feet thick. And at Hemmant, judgina: by the inflow of fresh water, 

 the depth of such superficial deposits is only twenty-eight feet. 

 Twelve feet and twenty-eight feet deposits may represent the 

 work of a score of years, or they may represent that of centuries 

 of the human period. It would be necessary to know the history 

 of possible previous denudations, and in the geology of the whole 

 country the higher and lower levels of the land drained. It is 

 not for me to go into these questions in this paper excepting to 

 add the above evidences to the valuable information already 

 tabulated by our Geological Survey. And I would, in the 

 prestige of the Royal Society, suggest the consideration by the 

 Agricultural and Geological Departments of the State Service 

 of a general supervision of drought-stricken farms and districts, 

 to the exploration for water, surface or sub-surface drainage or 

 natural springs. In a scientific and practical guidance the 

 cost should be but a fraction of the benefits gained. 



