42 Auriferous Districts of 



Aet. III. — On tlie Auriferous and otJier Metalliferous Districts of 

 Northern Queensland, ly ilie Rev. W. B. Clarke, MA., 

 F.G.S., Sfc, Vice-President. 



[Read 9th September, 1867.] 



In prefacing what I have to say upon one of the more imme- 

 diate subjects of the present communication, it may be well to 

 call attention to the striking fact that the great Western interior 

 of this continent is bounded to the Eastward by a series of 

 generally high insulated ranges which preserve a nearly meridional 

 direction on either side of the 140th degree of longitude. 



Such is the great mass of the South Australian Ranges to the 

 westward of that meridian, and such are the less lofty but 

 rocky fastnesses of the Barrier and Grey Ranges of Sturt to the 

 eastward of it ; and such also are the ranges at and above the 

 head of the Cloncurry River of Burke and Wills, and that great 

 Range to the eastward of the latter, which was discovered by 

 M'Kinlay, and which bears his name. This Range is, in all pro- 

 bability, connected with the Barrier and Grrey Ranges of Sturt, 

 as it is in direct prolongation of their strike. 



The whole of these mountain masses is made up of metamorphic 

 ancient rocks of metalliferous charaeter, and is surrounded by 

 tertiary and post-tertiary deposits, which are partially auriferous, 

 the detritus or drift having received its gold from the disintegra- 

 tion of the quartz veins which intersect certain portions of the 

 older formations. 



These ancient masses rise like fragmentary relics of Islands 

 (which, undoubtedly, they were in Tertiary times) out of the 

 present levels of the surrounding Deserts, through which the 

 drainages of the still more eastern Cordillera of New South 

 AYales and Queensland diverge to S.W. and N.W., transverse to 

 each other in direction, but yet rudely parallel with the respective 

 lines of the Eastern and North Eastern coasts, which may be said, 

 for convenience, to meet, as the general trends of the Cordillera 

 do, between the 28th and 29th parallels of latitude. As the 

 Western coast of York Peninsula, though extremely low, is 

 nevertheless well defined, and does not very considerably deviate 

 from the general boundary of the South Australian masses along 

 Spencer's and St. Vincent's Gulfs, — we may consider Eastern 

 Australia to be a distinct and well-defined division of the Con- 

 tinent ; especially as we now know that the most western waters, 

 which reach Spencer's Gulf to the South-West, and those which 

 pass to the South-Eastern corner of the Gulf of Carpentaria, 



