COLONIAL GEOLOGY NEW SOUTH WALES. 



77 



Hiver, Gipps Land. Frequently hornblende replaces the mica altogether ; 

 it is then this rotten character is most observed, and the decomposition it- 

 self has been so active in places, that at the forty-first milestone a fresh- 

 water deposit of white limestone has accumulated to a very considerable 

 thickness. At the forty-second milestone the summit of the coast range 

 is reached. Hence to the fifty- third milestone, the last crossing of the 

 Fanning river, these same granitoid rocks prevail. In the bed of the 

 Fanning river gold of rather coarse character has been found, both by 

 Mr. Hoss, of the Fanning, and a party of miners w T ho accompanied Mr. 

 Brown, of Sydney, to open a supposed copper-lode in the neighbourhood. 

 [The specimen given me by Mr. Brown was examined by Mr. Wood, at 

 the Geological laboratory, and found to be specular iron ore.] Now this 

 is exactly the character of granite described by Mr. Clarke, of Sydney, 

 as gold-bearing ; in fact it was from the description in his ' Southern Gold- 

 fields,' that I was led to give more than ordinary attention to this area, in 

 hope of getting at some practical result. 



My time would not permit me to prospect for myself, but I am of 

 opinion that a less lucrative employment might be found than gold-wash- 

 ing in Kill Bullock Creek, and from there to the Fanning river the geolo- 

 gical indications are equally favourable, supposing it to be a fact that gra- 

 nite of this description, or even quartz reefs in granite, are the matrix of 

 gold. It is true that on the top of the coast range boulder-pebbles of 

 rocks foreign to those in situ are scattered over the surface of the ground, 

 and although denudation over this area has been very great, still I saw no 

 sign of Silurian rocks in or near the Fanning ; there are certainly none on 

 the east side coast-range. This looks like one more example of the occur- 

 rence of " gold in granite." At about the seventieth mile from the Lower 

 Burdekin crossing, the granites give place to limestones full of corals, with 

 a lithological character, the exact counterpart of those of Buchan and 

 Bindi, Gipps Land ; they are as much contorted as these, but their most 

 regular dip is N. 30°, E. 50°. The same physical outline is also here ob- 

 tained, and Bindi, dotted with small clumps of scrub, overgrown with 

 many-tinted creepers, to give variety to the landscape, would serve for a 

 photograph of Cunningham's Burdekin Station. These limestones were 

 either very thin originally or they have been greatly denuded, since the 

 granite crops at the surface at intervals till we lose it altogether, and at 

 the Upper Burdekin crossing regularly stratified pink and brown sand- 

 stones and breccias make their appearance, dipping south-westerly at an 

 angle of 10° to 15°. 



On the west side of the Burdekin, Basaltic lava veils the underlying 

 rocks, but on crossing a deep cutting creek, six miles from the crossing 

 place, these same pink sandstones occupy the bed of the creek, with a 

 westerly dip at 15°. These sandstones I take to be the northerly exten- 

 sion of the Carbonaceous series, which I have Mr. Gregory's authority for 

 stating extend from the junction of the Suttor with the Burdekin to Dar- 

 ling Downs. The usual section on the Buckland table-land, according to 

 this authority, is — 1. Basalt; 2. Upper Carboniferous Sandstone ; 3. Coal- 

 measures ; 4. Limestones, with spirifers. I am indebted to Mr. Richard- 

 son, of Hockhampton (of Burns, Bassett, and Co.), for the information 

 that a seam of coal 6 ft. thick crops in the banks of the Mackenzie, near 

 Cooroorah station, with a general S.W. dip, resting unconformably on the 

 conglomerates and sandstones of Mount Stewart. 



From this Upper Burdekin crossing west to the watershed of the 

 Flinders the country is entirely basaltic, Fletcher's Creek forming its main 

 boundary on the south, and the Clarke river on the north, where the 



