BY DR. J. V. DANES. 81 



Northern Territory by the explorations of Mr. Brown, 

 "the Government Geologist of Southern Australia. 



That limestone area, so far as it is known, differs in 

 many respects from the limestone outcrops in the very 

 disturbed mountain ranges along the eastern coast. The 

 beds are in almost undisturbed horizontal positions, except 

 in some places along the eastern edge, as Mr. Ball kindly 

 informed me. Ihey fill out a vast basin of unknown dej,th. 

 The bores, of which the deepest is on Alexandra Downs 

 Station, 1,700ft. deep, did not reach the base of the lime- 

 stone formation. The surface of the Barkly Tableland, 

 and also of the connected plateaux in the Xorthern 

 Territory, represent a very good grazing country wherever 

 the limestones form the surface, but gravelly ridges consisting 

 of jasperised boulders and pebbles are in places very 

 extended, and covered by poor open forest and spinifex 

 grass. The water on the surface is scarce, and only the 

 Georgina River contains some permanent water holes, 

 called lakes. Two of them were the refuge of Landsborough's 

 exploring party. One of them. Lake Francis, supplies 

 Camooweal, the thriving economical centre of the Table- 

 land ; near the other, " Lake Morry," the homestead of 

 Rocklands Cattle Station is situated. 



The lack of a superficial water supply would be a great 

 drawback to the future development of the good grazing 

 country, but the limestone basin contains in the under- 

 ground depths a magnificent supply of water, which can 

 be reached by bores and pumped in unlimited quantities. 

 The eastern part of the Tableland is formed by an impure 

 limestone, where the underground water supply is very 

 limited and not sufficient for practical purposes, but that 

 area is luckily only an insignificant part of the Tableland, 

 which, so far as the limestone extends continuously, can 

 be sure of an unlimited w^ater supply in bores reaching 

 not below 4-500 feet. The extent of that basin in Queens- 

 land is not yet known, but reaches more than a hund»i'ed 

 miles further south than suggested until the present. The 

 value of that water supply will be of immense significance 

 for the future development of the farthest West of Queensland 

 and of more extended areas within the Northern Territory. 

 One good quality of it is that pumping is necessary, and so the 

 wasting of superfluous water as in the case of artesian bores 

 F — Royal Society. 



