Northern Queensland. 55 



have placed before us an interesting junction of old metalliferous 

 sedimentary rocks with basalt. 



Such representations of physical occurrences are always inter- 

 esting and valuable. 



IV. I have also to exhibit some drawings and photographs of 

 another vast display of metallic wealth, not on the Lynd but in a 

 different direction quite as far off, but still in association with the 

 large region which I have been discussing, though in a richer field 

 (as I believe) of copper and iron, than has as yet been found in Aus- 

 tralia. The localities in question are next the intersection of 

 M'Kinlay's route with that of Burke and Wills, and for full a 

 hundred miles of ceuntry along the M'Kinlay Range. 



The copper itself, I may say, is very extensively developed ; 

 and iron still more so. The latter metal is, we already know, ex- 

 tremely abundant in Queensland, and magnificent specimens of 

 ore from the neighbourhood of Port Curtis were exhibited in 

 Paris at the first French International Exhibition. There are 

 also in New South Wales vast masses of iron of a more solid 

 character than the Pitzroy ore : and such I found in the explo- 

 rations I made through the colony fifteen or sixteen years ago. 



There is a near approach to those masses which are depicted 

 in my friend's sketches (not this time by Mr. Daintree) in 

 those which Captain Sturt has mentioned, and one of which 

 " Piese's Nob," forms an illustration in the 2nd Vol. of his Central 

 Australia (p. 127). 



In that case, as in the one before us, the ore is chiefly magnetic. 



As to the Copper from this new locality, the Mint assay, with 

 which I have been obliged, gives a proportion of nearly 95 per 

 cent, of pure copper and a little silver. There are green car- 

 bonates also producing upwards of 58 per cent, of copper. 



Looking at the whole of the phenomena represented by the 

 features of the region, it is certain that Nature has been there in 

 a very active state producing great combinations of galvanic, 

 magnetic, and chemical forces. The iron also forms solid hills 

 and cliffs rising out of a desert to 50 and 60 feet in broad ridges, 

 and appearing under most picturesque forms. Imagine an ex- 

 plorer passing a night in a cavern in the very heart of a cliff of 

 iron ! But the most interesting fact which I have to .notice is 

 that the cliffs of magnetic iron on the Cloncurry are in exact con- 

 formity with cliffs of the same ore on the Grodamully River in the 

 Territory of Madras. 



Comparing the photograph which I have had made from the 

 sketch of the Australian locality by my friend Mr. Henry, with the 

 lithograph given in the 4th vol. of the Memoirs of the Geological 

 Survey of India, (part II, pi. 1), there appears to be a most re- 

 markable identity in the scenery and appearance of the cliffs in 

 both districts ; and reading the description in the Memoirs given 



