Northern Queensland. 47 



desired approach to Carpentaria. Mr. Gregory did not see the 

 Junction ; but lie tells us, what is most significant, that he passed 

 oyer great abundance of drift, and of such a character as seems 

 to be indicative to a certain degree of a gold region. Leichhardt 

 also states that the ridges were covered with pebbles. Trap and 

 porphyry occur not far off, and the rocks are often highly 

 inclined. 



It has been already stated, that Gold has been found at the 

 head of the Flinders. Mr. Daintree reports to me that about 

 forty miles from the head of the Cape, and from ninety to a 

 hundred miles (direct, I presume) from the junction with the 

 Suttor, on a tributary called " Beits' s Mistake" Creek, the Cape 

 River diggings are situated. He goes on to say : — 



" The source of this branch of the Cape is from Mount Three 

 Heads, so called from the fact, that a tributary of Fletcher's 

 Creek and Osley Creek (a tributary of the Flinders) have their 

 sources from the same hill. From Hann and Co's cattle station 

 on Fletcher's Creek, Mount Three Heads is distant 8 miles S. 38 

 W. Running down OxLey's Creek from its source to its junction 

 with the Flinders about 15 miles, gneiss, mica and hornblende 

 slate, with interstratified beds of quartzite are found to occupy 

 the whole distance." 



" On the parallel and more northern tributary of the Flinders 

 called the ' Walker,' the gold-bearing metamorphic slates pass 

 under the basaltic table lands and are hidden from sight. The 

 lower ' Walker' may thus be assumed to be the north-western 

 boundary of the Cape River series of auriferous rocks easily 

 available to the miner." 



" Looking from Mount Three Heads, towards the South-east a 

 broken country of hill and valley presents itself, a line of higher 

 and more abrupt ridges marking the water shed. The creeks and 

 gullies of this range, whether tributaries of the Cape, Flinders, 

 or Betts's Mistake Creek, will I believe, all be found to be auri- 

 ferous and many of them payable. The range itself follows 

 nearly the strike of the metamorphic rocks of which it is com- 

 posed, and especially at the south-eastern extremity. The dip is 

 south-westerly. Between the upper Cape and Fletcher's Creek, 

 the ranges are of Syenite." [I may mention here, that this rock 

 is a very good indication of Gold. I have found it so in various 

 parts of this Colony, and in the part of Queensland under notice 

 it is a prominent rock. Leichhardt noticed Syenite at the head 

 of the Lynd and on the Burdekin, (in the hills below Mount 

 M'Connell), which he thought was of TJornite; but Mr. Dalrymple 

 has informed me it is granite. Mr. Gregory says that the sum- 

 mit of Mount M'Connell is marked by cliffs of porphyry, which 

 also occur on the right bank of the Suttor. These differences 

 may be all reconciled, for Syenite occasionally puts on a porphy- 

 ritic appearance.] 



