24 W. S. DUN. 



while a natural one, cannot be regarded as strictly a logical 

 one. Daintree's region of observation of the Cretaceous 

 in Queensland was confined mainly to the eastern half of 

 the State. His definition of the Upper Cretaceous was 

 based on the assumption that the upper bed or beds of the 

 system were composed usually of coarse sandstone which 

 weathered out into flat-topped hills or mesas. We will see 

 later that this is not invariably nor even frequently the 

 case, the most notable exceptions being the Upper Cre- 

 taceous beds of Rockhampton, which were so carefully 

 collected from by W. Smith, R. L. Jack, and T. W. Edge- 

 worth David, and which have since been shown by the 

 work of Professor Richards, Mr. Dunstan, Government 

 Geologist of Queensland, and Dr. Walkom to be really 

 referable to the lower beds of the Cretaceous succession. 



The hitherto considered Desert Sandstone beds of the 

 White Cliffs Opal Field afford little evidence in favour of 

 their separation from the Rolling Downs. The point which 

 has been lost sight of in the adoption of the terminology 

 is the fact that the lithological charactersof the older(lower) 

 marine sediments are due to the drainage areas which fed 

 the Cretaceous mediterranean sea. 



The lower series which were deposited in a gradually 

 sinking area extending from Carpentaria through North- 

 western New South Wales to Lake Eyre were derived 

 mainly from the denudation of the Coastal Ranges composed 

 of Gympie mudstones, star cherts and shales, and in the 

 more northern areas of the limestones, calcareous shales 

 and slates of the Burdekin and Fanning River series. This 

 is sufficient to account for the fact that the major propor- 

 tion of the sediments of the lower strata of our Cretaceous 

 is composed of fine grained shales, calcareous shales, and 

 impure limestones, and an extremely small proportion of 

 strictly arenaceous beds. Occasionally there are cases in 



