76 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
ferous series, as in the neighbourliood of IpswicTi, we should expect richer 
deposits of gold in a south-westerly direction on getting into rocks lower 
in the Silurian series, that is supposing them still to retain their north- 
easterly dip. Passing out of Moreton Bay, and still going northerly, 
Tertiary sands of the Brighton series occupy low-lying country on the 
coast, the Glass House Peaks, said to be volcanic, raising their peaked 
heads from the plain with sharper outline than the craters of Ascension. 
At Double Island Point, the southern entrance of Wide Bay, Basalt un- 
derlies the Tertiary, and hence to Inskip Point are cliffs the exact coun- 
terpart in lithological character of the Red Bluff series, Brighton. The 
streets of Maryborough are metalled with soft sandstone, similar in ap- 
pearance to the Melbourne beds, and fifteen miles in a south-westerly di- 
rection gold of a nuggety character is being found in quantity, and about 
a hundred diggers are employed. 
Hence to Ilockhampton the sandy tertiaries prevail along the coast. 
Under Woody Island, and at one point on Fraser's Island, Basalt is seen 
in places cropping from under the sand. Eockhampton stands on rocks 
which dip to the north-east at high angles. A quarry opened at the side 
of one of the street* exposes a fine section of these. They consist chiefly 
of altered slates with bands of impure limestone containing fossils, pro- 
nounced by Professor M'Coy as Palaeozoic. The altered slates, almost Ly- 
dian stone in places, resemble those of Mount Staveley, Victoria. JN^o 
quartz reefs were noticed in them. In the range of hills opposite Eock- 
hampton, these same beds have a westerly dip, and splendid sections are 
afforded of the sequence of beds in the heads of the creeks running 
from these hills. Up the Fitzroy, about four miles above Eockhampton, 
a marble is quarried for lime-burning; it has a north-easterly dip, and ap- 
pears to be nearly the uppermost stratum of the series exposed in the 
neighbourhood. Cornelians, some of large size, are found in the gravel 
drift of the Fitzroy at this point, probably washed from granitoid rocks 
exposed higher up that stream. Leaving Keppel Bay and going north 
among the islands, all is granite (Pentecost Island is one of the most re- 
markable in form). Generally they are pine-clad, and have a most pic- 
turesque appearance. The sail from Eockhampton to Port Denison is, in- 
deed, one of the most charming it has yet been my fortune to undertake. 
Bounding Gloucester Island, a precipitous granite ridge. Port Denison, is 
reached. 
The township of Bowen stands on Tertiary sand resting on a granitoid 
rock. The same geological feature extends along the coast northward to 
the Burdekin river, Cape Upstart, Mount Abbot, and numerous smaller 
peaks of granite rearing their heads above the Tertiary plains and alluvial 
swamps at their base ; indeed, were the coast line submerged to the di- 
viding rauge 2;)0 ft. below the x)resent level, it would present the same 
features as now obtain from the present shore to the Barrier Eeef. At the 
lower crossing of the Burdekin, the cornelian-bearing granitoid rocks are 
again in force, and abundance of cornelians are to be found in the river 
sands. Following the present well-beaten track to the Valley of Lagoons 
at the head of the Burdekin— a track which twelve months ago did not 
exist, but is now as plain and well-worn as any in Victoria (the distances 
in miles marked on the trees) — for twenty-nine miles from the Lower 
Burdekin crossing, we pass over a level, sandy. Tertiary area, with large 
patches of swampy alluvium. At the twenty-seventh milestone Kill Bul- 
lock Creek is reached, on the east bank of which a well-defined quartz 
reef crops out from a matrix of rotten granite. This granite is exactly 
similar in character to that of Omeo and that of some portions of Tambo 
