436 Capt. F. W. Hutton on the Origin of the 
the whole of the Cretaceous period all Central Australia and 
the whole of Queensland appear to have been under the ocean, 
the Rev. J. Tenison-Woods having found Upper Cretaceous 
rocks on the very summit of the dividing range inland from 
Brisbane. But Western Australia, New South Wales, Hast- 
ern Victoria, and ‘Tasmania remained above water. There 
are no Tertiary marine rocks on the east coast of Australia, 
and we must therefore assume that in the Eocene period 
Queensland was elevated, and from that time neither it nor 
New South Wales has ever stood much lower than at present. 
It also appears probable that the centre of the continent re- 
mained submerged until the close of the Miocene period or 
even later. But the geological evidence on this point is at 
present uncertain, for the ‘“ Desert Sandstone,” so largely 
developed in the interior, and which lies unconformably on 
the Cretaceous system, is thought by Daintree and Clarke to 
be marine, by Etheridge to be lacustrine, and by Tenison- 
Woods to be of eolian origin and of different ages. Marine 
Miocene rocks are found at an elevation of 800 feet above the 
sea * ; butas the central plateau of Australia rises to more than 
1000 feet in the north, it would not necessarily be altogether 
submerged, especially as the northern parts of Australia 
appear to have been subsiding for a long time. On the other 
hand, Professor Duncan is of opinion that the Miocene sea 
of South Australia and Tasmania was of so high a tempera- 
ture that it must have been open to the influx of warm currents 
from the north. Be this as it may, it is evident (1) that 
during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods Australia stood at 
a lower level than at present, and (2) that it could not have 
been joined to New Guinea during the Cretaceous period, as 
supposed by Mr. Wallace, although this may very probably 
have occurred during the Kocene period. 
Western Australia appears to have been more stable than 
any other part of the continent. The Darling range consists 
of granite, capped by sedimentary rocks of Upper Paleozoic 
age. On the east these ranges end abruptly in cliffs from 
200 to 500 feet high, overlooking plains and salt~marshes 
composed of the ‘‘ Desert Sandstone.” ‘Towards the sea, on 
the west, the granite disappears, and its place is taken by 
Upper Paleozoic’ rocks, which are overlain in places by 
another system of undoubtedly Jurassic age; and these are 
again overlain near the coast by eolian rocks of a recent 
date. Western Australia, therefore, appears to have been a 
* C, 8. Wilkinson, ‘ Notes on the Geology of New South Wales,’ 1882, 
p. 57. 
