Northern District of Queensland, 191 



in my opinion, all the country near the coast is better 

 adapted for cattle or horses. 



A few miles north of Marlborough Creek, after crossing a 

 porphyritic rock, of the same description as exists near 

 Bockhainpton, I came upon ground strown with quartz ; fur- 

 ther on, in approaching the range that divides the waters of 

 Broad Sound from those of Eitzroy, occur veins of the same 

 rock. There is no well defined range, but a continuation of 

 broken country, consisting of clay-slate with veins of quartz. 

 This country, extending for twelve or fifteen miles north and, 

 as I afterwards found, many miles to the west, is destined, I 

 have no doubt, to be a future gold-field. Beyond this con- 

 try to the north, and on the waters of Broad Sound, there is, 

 I think, a carboniferous formation. In the beds of the creeks 

 there is a friable shale. Large masses of sandstone in some 

 places appear on the surface ; and there are hills, three or 

 four hundred feet high, with fiat tops of horizontal strata of 

 sandstone rock. The country here is level, soil sandy, 

 openly timbered, well grassed, and abundantly watered. At 

 Tuloomba Creek, which is a tributary of the Styx, and about 

 twenty-five miles N.W. from Marlborough, are the farthest 

 out white men, engaged in forming a new station. I as- 

 cended here a sandstone peak, like a pyramid, and saw 

 Prospect Hill, which bears N. 33° W., and is distant about 

 twenty miles. The intervening country is all level, well 

 grassed, and is watered by running creeks. Many fragments 

 of quartz, tinged with iron, are scattered over the surface, 

 and indicate that the hills to the west are probably covered 

 with this rock. 



Prospect Hill is isolated, but is only a few miles distant 

 from the coast range. It is of porphyritic rock, and, like all 

 the other hills of porphyry, has at its base the same compact 

 slaty rock observed at Rockhampton. Beyond this hill, to 

 the north, between the sea and the coast range, which is 

 high and well defined, is a level, well grassed and watered 

 country, finely adapted for cattle. 



Eight miles north from Prospect Hill, after crossing some 

 marine plains from which the sea has recently receded, 

 I ascended a low hill near the coast, naming it Sea 

 View Hill. Its rock is of grey porphyry, much weathered, 

 and contains cubes of iron pyrites of a deep yellow, probably 

 from an admixture of gold. North 55° E. from this hill is 

 the mouth of a tidal river, seemingly half a mile wide. 

 Unable to cross this river, we had to follow it up westerly, 



