46 



II. The Terraces. 



The Mount Charlotte ridge (fig. 5) consists of a purple fissile 

 sandstone which rises about 200 feet above the sandy tract, 

 which separates it from the Pillar and its neighbours fourteen 

 miles to tlie south. The dip of the series being south at only 

 :20 deg.j but very precipitous on the north side and bare of 

 vegetation ; a good natural section is displayed about two miles 

 east of the track. At the foot of the escarpment, the sandstone 

 is underlain by a bed of argillaceous limestone arranged in 

 mammillary concretions, the concretionary layers having man- 

 ganese-dendrites between them, and what might be termed the 

 nucleus of the concretion is singularly like the cast of a shallow 

 shell. 



Beneath this band is another close-grained argillaceous lime- 

 stone, which leaves an insoluble residuum of quite one-third when 

 treated with hydrochloric acid. Portions of this band have a 

 minute oolitic structure so suggestive of foraminifera that it was 

 only after Mr. W. Howchin, F.G.S., had made a microscopic 

 section that it was settled they were not organic. Next follow- 

 ing underneath is a thick stratum of calcareous sandy or earthy 

 nature, very fissile and soft, and containing an immense number 

 of thin veins of manganese and manganic ironstone. From this 

 stratum, which weathers easily, the numerous nodules of man- 

 ganese and ironstone, which covers large areas, is derived. 



The lowest bed of all is a siliceous limestone, which weathers 

 into a corrugated face like a very coarse file, and by its weather- 

 ing exposes angular fragments imbedded in it, which are undis- 

 tinguishable from the porcelain cap of the table-land. 



This series, which in gentle undulations forms the terraces 

 ^nd parallel ridges, intervenes the whole distance to the foot 

 of the Macdonnells. At Mount Burrell Station, a few 

 miles further north, is the Whinham Si3rings of Stuart. The 

 springs are due to an anticlinal fold which here crosses the 

 Hugh. Just below the springs, the limestone exposed in the 

 <3liff dips south at 45 deg.; and immediately northward and con- 

 tinuing for many miles, the dip is north at a very low angle. 

 This brings the different beds in view as an ascending series so 

 far as the James Range, where a synclinal trough is well marked, 

 and a well 190 feet deep pierced the fissile sandstone (which is 

 here of white colour) and struck good water. ]^orth-west of 

 Mount Burrell, the porcelain capping is seen on the eminences, 

 but the aspect is not so prominent as on the grits of the table- 

 land. It is evident, however, that the porcelainising action ex- 

 tended over the whole surface of the country, but of this more 

 hereafter. 



In the Waterhouse Range, a very clear synclinal trough is 



