CHAPTER V. 



QUEENSLAND. 



The total output of Queensland coal for 1909 was 756,577 

 tons, valued at 270,726, or 7/lf per ton. The three chief pro- 

 ducing districts are: 1st, Ipswich and Darling 1 Downs, with a 

 yield of 642,804 tons; Wide Bay and Maryborough (Burrimi) 

 with an output of 92,573; and the Rockhampton and Central 

 district (Dawson Mackenzie), yielding 21,007 tons. 



Some of the Queensland coal measures belong to the 

 Mesozoic area : these include the Styx and Burrum coalfields 

 of the Lower Trias- Jura series, and the Ipswich, Callide and 

 Staiiwell coalfields of the Upper Trias- Jura series. The 

 Palaeozoic coal measures are comprised in the Upper and 

 Lower Bowen series, the highest members of the Permo-Car 

 boniferous system. The coalfields that belong to the Palaeo- 

 zoic coal measures are those of the Upper Bowen of Clermont 

 (Blair Athol) and Tolmies, and the Lower Bowen of the Daw- 

 son and Mackenzie Rivers. 



The coal export trade of Queensland is very small and 

 irregular, the imports from T^ew South Wales being greatly in 

 excess. 



The Dawson-Mackenzie coalfields belong to the Lower 

 Bowen series. According to B. DuiistanJ there is an immense 

 area of country on either side of the Central Railway Line, 

 north and south, which contains coal measures of great 

 economic value- Of the 7000 square miles of country which 

 have been examined, there are about 5000 square miles pos- 

 sibly coal-bearing, which by no means represents the limit of 

 the country supposed or known to be coal -bearing, as both to 

 the north and south of the area examined coal has been found 

 in numerous places. To the south the extension of the Daw- 

 son coal measures might be continued close to the Western 

 Railway line, and to the north the measures might continue 

 uninterruptedly up the Isaac River to the Bowen River dis- 



iGreology of the Dawson and Mackenzie Rivers, with Spe- 

 cial Reference to the Occurrence of Anthracitic Coal. (By 

 Authority, Brisbane, 1901.) 



