SALIENT POINTS IN THE GEOLOGY OF QUEENSLAND. 197 



D'Oyley Aplin, noted in 1867,* the occurrence of branched corals 

 and crinoidal stems at Elbow Creek, Lucky Valley, in blue slates, 

 within a series of slates, sandstones, and calcareous grits. Above 

 the slates Mr. Aplin noted also calcareous grits with shells and 

 casts of various Brachiopoda, Gasteropoda and bivalves. Of these 

 only Froductus and iSpiri/er were mentioned, even by their generic 

 names. Mr. Aplin regarded the fossiliferous series as Silurian. 

 Of the fossils Mr. Aplin remarks : — " In general aspect they 

 resemble the fossils of the diorite slates at Gympie" (p. 5). To 

 this latter statement of Mr. Aplin, I should attach greater weight 

 than to the determination of two gpnera of brachiopods which 

 range up to a date much later than Silurian. I could even believe, 

 without difficulty, in the absolute identity of the Lucky Valley 

 and Gympie formation. Now the latter has turned out, under 

 the careful study of Mr. R. Etheridge, junr. (to whom I must 

 express my deep obligation for help generously rendered during the 

 last fifteen years), of much completer material than was accessible 

 to Aplin, or Daintree, to be not Upper Silurian as Aplin, and 

 at one time Daintree supposed, nor Devonian as Daintree 

 subsequently believed, but Carbonifero-Permian. 



Mr. Daintree observed at Mount Wyatt diggings, certain slates 

 and shales containing Chonetes sarcimdata, an Orthis allied to 

 0. rustica, Receptacidites and Lejytceyia, as determined by Professor 

 McCoy. On the strength of these fossils, the formation was assumed 

 to be of Upper Silurian age. The assumption was based on a single 

 distinctly specifically determined brachiopod Chonetes safcinulata, 

 now known to range upward into Devonion times ; an Orthis, 

 which might be allied to an Upper Silurian species without being 

 itself of that age, the genus ranging all through the Silurian, 

 Devonian, and Carboniferous, a Receptaculites and a Leptcnna 

 (Silurian and Devonian) not specifically determined. 



Daintree traced these beds to the Upper Cape and Campaspe, 

 and believed them to extend to the Gilbert Ranges. He moreover 

 laid great stress on the lithological resemblance of the fossiliferous 

 beds of Mount Wyatt, and the probably continuous strata of the 

 Upper Cape, Campaspe aud Gilbert, to the Upper Silui'ian auriferous 

 strata of Victoria. 



Of the auriferous rocks of the Upper Cape, Daintree observes! 

 that they may be divided into lower, middle and upper ; the lower 

 consisting of laminated granite, mica, and hornblende schists, 

 interstratified ; the middle consisting of soft thin-bedded mica 

 slates, with occasional bands of silicified mica-and-hornblende- 

 schists ; and the upper consisting of hard quartzites and silicified 

 mica-slates. He adds — " No fossils have yet been, or are likely 

 to be met with in these beds. The only assertion that can be 



"Report on the Auriferous countrj' of the Upper Condamine. &c., fcap., Brisbane, (By 

 Authority) 1867. 

 tReport on the Cape River Diggings, fcap., Brisbane. (By Authority,) 1868, p. 1. 



