410 



PROCEEDINGS OP SECTION C. 



In Queensland the axes have a direction like those of New South 

 Wales, the chief mountain ranges running north and south. Here 

 are also shown on the geological ma ) huge areas of Tertiary deposits- 

 extending for more than 200 miles from the Gulf of Carpentaria. 



o ?7 

 Sketch shoiving Relation of Area of Elevation to Area of Depression. 



Mr. L. C. Green (late of the Queensland Geological Survey) informs 

 us that he is of the opinion that the Barclay tableland south of the 

 Gulf is probably the last relic of the old inland sea of Australia. The 

 Post Pliocene limestone constituting such tableland has an elevation 

 of some 500ft.. pointing to a considerable rise of land surface in recent 

 geological time. To this elevation we may refer the extraordinary 

 shallowness and even shore line of the Gulf of Carpentaria. The s me 

 movement may have influenced Lake Eyre. 



Across the Papuan Gulf are eAddences of a recent uplift. One of 

 us (H.) has observed a raised harrier reef behind the village of Maiva. 

 At Yule Island this barrier is breached by the St. Joseph River. The 

 plain between the Mount Yule Range and the coast, through which 

 the St. Joseph River winds, is obviously the former bed of a broad 

 lagoon channel. This interesting feature has not, we believe, been 

 hitherto noticed in literature, though some of the fossils from the 

 raised barrier were discussed by Mr. Etheridge (Rec. Geol. Survey, 

 N.S.W., II., 1889, p. 177). This movement was probably synchronous, 

 and possibly an effect of the same crustal heave that depressed the 

 Queensland coast. 



If, as Professor Agassiz considers, the Queensland coast had 

 remained stationary since the Cretaceous it would have now presented 

 a very different appearance. Long-continued denudation would have 

 levelled the coastal ranges to a uniform peneplain. The rivers, especi- 

 ally active silt-carriers when swollen by the wet cycle of Tertiary times. 



