ANNIVEESART ADDRESS. 7 



assigned at present. But having received from a more recent 

 explorer of the country to the south-east a trilobite of a 'Devonian 

 species, and from Leichhardt's statements to myself personally, 

 belieAdng some shells which he found to be upper Palaeozoic, it is 

 probable that much of the region may be of similar character to 

 that of Queensland. 



Captain (Admiral) P. P. King gives in his book a view of the 

 red sandstone on Prince Itegent's Eiver, about 360 geographical 

 miles, on a parallel coast trend to S.W. of Port Darwin, 

 which looks there to be a thick bedded rock. The fossils Leich- 

 hardt found on the Eoper Eiver were in a baked rock, which 

 occurs iu various places in connection with basalt. The trans- 

 mutations occurring in other districts where copper, iron, and 

 gold exist, are frequent ; and these changes are on both sides of 

 the great sandstone plateau. Taking the Victoria Eiver as the 

 southern boundary of the region, we know that Admiral Stokes 

 found fossils w^hich w^ere lost on their v^ay to England; and 

 Possil Head obtained its name from them. Jukes says the rock 

 in which they must have occurred resembled the Palaeozoic sand- 

 stone of New South Wales. Stokes says they were " casts of 

 shells not of a recent appearance." Although, in the absence of 

 other evidence, Mr. Daintree may claim the sandstone for his 

 "Desert" rocks of that name, I believe that they are far older. 

 Some of the granite is very large-grained, with lithia mica. 

 The granite passes occasionally into pegmatite and syenite. 

 Much of the sandstone is fine-grained. 



After all, however, the chief advantage of a settlement so far 

 to the north-west, although in a climate unsuitable to the labour 

 of Englishmen, holds out prospects of intercourse with India, and 

 therefore, by transmarine communication, with England ; and on 

 that account, if on no other, now the overland line is completed, 

 we ought to wish well to the opening up of the whole of that 

 distant territory ; especially as we saw in the late Exhibition 

 proofs of the value of exploration, in the pearls which formed part 

 of the exhibition from Western Australia, and which occur also 



