Northern Queensland. 51 



difficulty may be overcome, if we regard the formation as mant- 

 ling round a granitic axis. The slates of the Cape are repre- 

 sented as striking north-west, which ought to place them in the 

 same category as the Silurian of the coast ; the Broken River 

 slates assume a more meridional direction. 



II. I come now to a discovery by Mr. Daintree himself, in the 

 extending of the northern gold-fields to the head of the Gilbert 

 River. He says — ■" Although the area of the auriferous rocks is 

 considerable both on the Cape and Clarke Rivers, still it is small 

 compared with the extent of the old metamorphic gold-bearing 

 slates of the Upper Gilbert. 



" The eastern tributaries of the Copperfield River, the western 

 tributaries of M'Kinnon's Lynd, the western and eastern tribu- 

 taries of Jardine's Einnasleigh River, all run through the mica 

 schists and other metamorphic formations." 



This is in close confirmation of the brief geological notices of 

 Gregory and M'Kinlay. 



The former speaks of granite, porphyry, quartz, and black 

 slate in the drift of the river, with Iserine and minute garnets 

 one hundred and sixty miles below the head. Eighty miles 

 higher these rocks form low hills, the slate being contorted and 

 nearly vertical, and striking north and south, all much disturbed 

 and hardened by contact with porphyry ; quartz rock occurs in 

 beds or veins in the granite, also trending north and south. The 

 river sand contained Titaniferous iron : Trap was also very abun- 

 dant, the dip of the slate is given at from 60 to 80° E. by S., 

 on the upper bank of the river. The older formations are crested 

 by horizontal sandstone. To the eastward the formations are 

 chiefly gneiss, porphyry, trap, and granite, with fragments of 

 slate, and other named rocks imbedded in the porphyry. Por- 

 tions of these, so far as I have examined, are a breccia — very 

 similar to what occurs in the upper part of the Peel River, and in 

 alluvia on the Lachlan in New South Wales. The height of the 

 Dividing Range between the Gilbert and Lynd is about 2500 feet. 

 The poryhyry summits are described as fissured vertically in col- 

 umnar divisions. M'Kinlay, however, says the sandstone and con- 

 glomerate take the same forms, a little more to the westward. I 

 suspect the rocks are identical. M'Kinlay describes this region 

 as "fearfully grand and terrible^ He had, he says, never dreamt 

 of such a rough country. He speaks also of granite on the head 

 waters of the Lynd, in advance of the well-known lava streams 

 of Leichhardt. Erom the dividing range to the Burdekin, the 

 surface presents decomposing slate and sandstone, and is strewn 

 with quartz pebbles of various colours. Mr. Dairy mple, on his 

 traverse from Rockingham Bay to the Valley of Lagoons, col- 

 lected facts relating to the existence of the formations mentioned 



