Northern Queensland. 45 



are intruded into, broken, contorted and altered by igneous rocks. 

 The basalt, which seems to ine so far as I have examined it, to 

 be as recent as that which forms the upper rock of that name in 

 Victoria, occupies a plateau at the head of the rivers, and so far 

 to the south as the Clarke River, in which it assumes in places 

 the lava-like character which distinguishes much of the country- 

 near Melbourne. 



Leichhardt and Gregory both describe the occurrence of these 

 formations, and both speak of streams of lava. There can be no 

 doubt then, that it is a region of disturbance ; the older forma- 

 tions being also highly inclined and the newer horizontally bedded, 

 these being also occasionally hardened and tilted. 



From an examination of collections made by Leichhardt, 

 Gregory, M'Kinlay, and other explorers, I could have no hesit- 

 ation in believing that gold would exist in that region, otherwise 

 so much in accordance with physical facts elsewhere observed. 



Since Gregory's journey, the discoveries of Burke and "Wills, 

 and (in search of them) Walker's, M'Kinlay's, and Lands- 

 borough's, and still more recently the explorations of Jardine 

 and Daintree have added much to our geological as well as geo- 

 graphical knowledge of the region between the 141st and 145th 

 meridians. The courses of the new rivers Norman and Einnas- 

 leigh, which latter flows to the Staaten of the Dutch, have been 

 discovered, and adjustments of the Lynd and Gilbert have taken 

 place somewhat in advance of Leichhardt's arrangement of those 

 waters. We know now also that the waters of the Thomson, to 

 which the Barcoo of Mitchell appears to be a tributary, and the 

 Blinders rise in the same ranges, not more than from 170 to 200 

 miles from the Burdekin, and about 200 or 240 from the Cape 

 Biver which was discovered by Leichhardt as a tributary of the 

 Suttor, and which it enters not many miles from the junction of 

 the latter with the Burdekin. 



"Within the limits of these boundaries, which by the Suttor is 

 connected with Peak Downs, and then on to Broad Sound, 

 Canoona, Bockhampton, Gladstone, the Don, the Mary, and 

 Brisbane, we have various tracts of greater or less auriferous 

 promise, these tracts cropping out amidst surrounding deposits of 

 Middle and Upper Palaeozoic, and Secondary formations and over- 

 lying areas of Tertiary and Post-pliocene age. The range of 

 country here indicated cannot be less than 900 miles in length 

 from S.E., to N.W., and although some of the auriferous spots 

 may not be more rich than the immediate vicinity of Brisbane, 

 yet there are others of a more important character, and even more 

 so than any yet fully developed in Queensland. 



If, again, we take into account the Panning Biver, Keelbottom 

 Creek, Star Creek, and others, westward and eastward of the 

 Burdekin, there must undoubtedly be a vast amount of gold yet 



