320 REPORTS OF RESEARCH COMMITTEES. 



7. The Pacific Slopes of North and Central Queensland are a 

 subsiding area, but south of Gt. Sandy Island the coast is rising, 

 especially around Moreton Bay. 



The drying-up of swamps from natural causes has been noticed 

 i.i active progress. Serveaal areas of .melaleuca swamp in the East 

 Moreton have in the last twenty years become dry . casuarina 

 country, 



(a) The Cairns ('oa>it<il Belt. — This is the strip of country lying 

 betweeai the Barron River on the north and the Herbert River on 

 the south, th© sea on the east and tiie Atherton-Herberton table- 

 lands on the west. The belt is rugged in the extreme. High 

 mountains rise abruptly from the very seashore or from a narrow 

 alluvial coastal plain. Heie and there disconnected outliers of the 

 coastal range stand forth as conical peaks. Mt. Bellenden Ker, 

 one of the peaks on the range itself, is the highest mountain in 

 'Q-.ieensland, although it is only a few miles from the coast. 



(&) The KdH'idnx) Hills. District . — This district consists of 

 rugged incuntains and ravines. The ranges and tablelands, which 

 often exceed 2,000 feet in altitude, are built up' of granitic and 

 metamorphic rocks, here and there broken through by and capped 

 with basalt of late Tertiary age. as at Mt. Fox, a quite recent 

 basalt cone. 



The Kangaroo tinfield consists of granites and metamorphic 

 • recks capped in })laces by horizontal sandstones and by basalts. 



The metamoirphic rocks consist of slates, schists, greywackes and 

 quartzites, steeply inclined and greatly folded. They have been 

 intruded by the granites (biotite and muscovite granite) and by 

 pegmatites. 



(c) The Cooldoirii Jjistrict and iUul- Count r;/. — Owing to the 

 heterogeneop.s geological formations cf this area .there are great 

 variations of soil and climate. The immediate vicinity of Cook- 

 'town consists of high hills of granite and slate formation rising out 

 of a narrow coastal plain consisting of the same rocks. Extensive 

 alluvial flats cover thei interspaces between the hills, and where 

 these are periodically flooded by salt water from the Endeavcnr 

 River mangroive jungles constitute a physiographic feature. 



Not more than twenty nriles inland, following the railway line, 

 we enter a low tableland from 300 to 600 feet high, built up* of 

 sandstones. Westwards this tableland extends nearly to Maytown, 

 gaining an altitude of over 1,400 feet. 



{d) The Atherton-Herherton Tahlelands. — We iiiav regard as 

 one physiographic unit all that strip oi timber land which is in 

 part scrub-covered on the basaltic and slate areas. This type of 

 country extends from Mt. Molloy, through Athertcn, to Ravens- 

 hoe. The southern portion of the area is further divisible into 

 the Barron upland plain, and the Herberton tablelands. The 

 Barron valley has an elevation of 1,32'5 feet at Mareeba and 2,466 

 feet at Atherton. The Herberton-Raveiishoe tableland is a step 



