288 Miscellaneous. 
MISCHITMAN HOUS. 
GroLocicaL Notres or QuEENSLAND.! 
From the Gulf of Carpentaria to the Darling Downs, north to 
south, the fossil remains of extinct mammalia have been found in 
indurated muds, the beds of old watercourses. The bones and teeth 
are those of Diprotodon Australis, Macropus titan, Thylacoleo, 
Phascolomys, Nototherium, crocodile teeth, etc. The Dzprotodon 
inhabited the Queensland valleys abundantly, and the Crocodilus 
Australis had a great range inland. he Diprotodon remains are 
found chiefly in the most permanent water-holes. No human bones, 
flint flakes, or any kind of native weapons have yet been discovered 
with the extinct mammalia of Queensland. 
Desert sandstone is the most recent widely-spread stratified deposit 
developed in Queensland. Since it became dry land the denudation 
of this formation has been excessive, but there is still a large tract 
in situ. Probably this desert sandstone covered the whole of 
Australia at one time. (It is possible that desert sandstone in 
Queensland has value for free gold.) On the vast plains west of the 
dividing range Cretaceous strata are found; hot alkaline springs 
occur in these plains, and the discovery of these suggested the 
possibility of the existence of artesian water long before the bores 
were sunk from which flow ‘‘ Queensland’s rivers of gold”’. 
The whole of Queensland is a vast cemetery of fossilized species— 
on the surface, buried in drifts, or hidden in clays. The plains of 
the Flinders River disclose great deposits of marine fossil shells— 
Belemnites and Ammonites and remains of extinct animals. In the 
Gulf of Carpentaria, 40 or 50 feet below the alluvial deposits forming 
the banks of rivers, firmly embedded in the hard cement—water- 
worn stones in an ironstone clay—are the bones of innumerable 
extinct gigantic animals that, far back in prehistoric ages, roamed 
over the Gulf country: Diprotodon, Nototherium, Zygomaturus, and 
Thylacoleo, grass-eaters and flesh-eaters. The utter extinction of these 
creatures can only be explained by a great change of climate and 
prolonged periods of drought. Gigantic alligators, turtles, and 
marsupials abounded in those days, suggesting a luxuriant 
and abundant vegetation, both trees and herbage. 
From an economic point of view one may say that three-fourths of 
the area of Queensland forms good pastoral land. Of this 60,000 
square miles contain valuable mines of gold, with outcrops of copper 
and lead ores, as well as rich deposits of tin; 24,000 square miles are 
capable of producing illimitable supplies of iron and coal. It may 
be safely asserted that in Queensland is a wealth of material resource 
comparing favourably with any other part of Australia. 
1 From the London Correspondent of the North Queensland Register, 
22 Basinghall Street, London, E.C. 
