NOTES AND QUEKIES. 



79 



of Canoona, and those south-westerly from Maryborough, and to the strip 

 of country beween these two gold-fields we should look for the extension 

 of diggings. From the fact of these rocks being, as I believe, Upper 

 Silurian, gold-fields of the type of Caledonia and Anderson's Creek are to 

 be expected rather than those of Sandhurst and Ballarat. Silurian rocks 

 again make their appearance at Mount Caroline, the southernmost peak of 

 Perry's Hanges, Upper Burdekin. On the flanks of this hill their general 

 dip is south-westerly. These rocks I should consider about the horizon of 

 the auriferous series of Peak Downs, and that they represent the western 

 portion of a great anticlinal axis, of which the Canoona and Maryborough 

 beds represent the eastern. The dome of this axis has been denuded, and 

 gone to form a portion of the material of that enormous carboniferous de- 

 posit which, as Mr. Gregory informs me, extends from the junction of the 

 Suttor with the Burdekin southward to Darling Downs. From Broad 

 Sound northerly to Mount Elliot, the coast range is of granite and its 

 varieties, and in streams flowing exclusively through the granite, auriferous 

 drift is found. 



Whether the extension of the Silurian system over this country has been 

 entirely removed, and the granite represents only the base of this supposed 

 anticlinal dome exposed by denudation (as the objectors to gold in granite 

 would probably argue), is, of course, uncertain ; this much at least can be 

 said, that the drift in which this gold is found is essentially granitic, and 

 the resemblance to the granites of Omeo and Tambo River, Gipps' Land, 

 is remarkable. Basaltic lava flows, of greater or less extent, are met with 

 in various parts of the colony, e.g. between the Clarke river and Fletcher's 

 Creek, the Valley of Lagoons, the Buckland table-land, Peak Downs, etc. 

 Between the 19th and 20th parallels of latitude the greater part of the 

 country seems to be oc mpied by it. The tract of country included between 

 the Clarke and Fletcher's Creek has received its Basaltic covering from 

 local craters, which form conspicuous landmarks only from high ground ; 

 they are too low to be seen in timbered country. The Basaltic areas are 

 those best adapted for pastoral purposes in the tropics, their rich soils in- 

 ducing the growth of the finer grasses with abundance of herbs, whilst 

 their elevation above the sea renders the climate less enervating than that 

 of the seaboard. From Mr. A. C. Gregory I learn that the representatives 

 of our " older Basalts " of Philip Island, Cape Schank, etc., are found as 

 dykes cutting through the Carboniferous series, and he draws the distinction 

 (which holds in Victoria) between the Basaltic lavas of the plains and these, 

 that the former were ejected from individual craters, the latter from fis- 

 sures, forming dykes in rocks they traversed. 



The geology of Queensland, therefore, seems to differ little from that of 

 Victoria, except in the relative areas occupied by each formation, the 

 neighbourhood of Fitzroy Downs, from which the Wollumbilla fossils have 

 been received, affording the only prospect of novelty to the Victorian 

 geologist. 



NOTES AND QUEKIES. 



Devonians in North-East France. — It is well known that the De- 

 vonian rocks of the Meuse extend towards the Boulonnais, and are con- 

 nected with that enormous line of dislocation and upheaval which has 

 brought up the coal-measures and subjacent rocks in a direction from 



