50 The Queensland Naturalist. Vol. I, 
THE BRISBANE TERTIARIES.^^ 
( 2 ) 
By Sydney B. J. Skertchly (First President), LateofH.M. 
Ueologicai Surveys of England and Queensland. 
On iMay 30th I had the privilege of conducting a large 
party of our members over the Brisbane Beds in the vicinity 
of Sherwood, where cerlain developments of these rocks 
are clearly demonstrable. 
The Carrington Rocks, which crop out on the foreshore 
of the Brisbane River, are seen to be made up of gnarled 
schists, and an intensely hard, highly jasperised quartzite 
of Permo-carboniferous, or even older date. This inlier 
formed a stack of skerry in the wide shallow lagoons of the 
Jura-trias era, and as its form can still be clearly made out, 
I call it the Sherwood Skerry. It rose to a jiinnacle at the 
northern end, and in Tertiary times, this pinnacle was much 
broken u]3 by weathering, and its slopes are still covered 
with a very remarkable scree, quite unlike that produced 
by present atmospheric agents upon these rocks. I incline 
very strongly to look upon this scree as due to frost action. 
It has been preserved under the lee of the pinnacle by having 
been covered with other Tertiary beds and basalt, mostly 
now removed. Its exact relation to the beds next described 
is not visible, owing to a modern gully having cut along the 
junction. 
Across this small gully we came upon the striking 
gravel and shingle beds, which, had they occurred, say, in 
Scotland, wmuld have been looked upon as typical gravelly 
“ till.” In it large and small stones, sand and clayey 
matter, are jumbled up, and sometimes the long stones 
up-ended in a way that precludes any suggestion of ordinary 
stream action. I shall speak of these as the Higeldy Gravels, 
in honour of my old friend, Amund Helland, the eminent 
Norwegian glacialist, who saw in “ higgledy-piggledy ” 
(pr. liigh-geldy), a rare and precious technical term. These 
Higeldy Gravels become surface-hardened into a spurious 
conglomei'ate, and as we saw, underlie most of the low 
alluvial ground from Rocklea to Indooroopilly Bridge. 
Here and there, and by no means rarely, great erratics, 
weighing several hundredweights in certain cases, lie in 
tlie gravel. They are of the jasperised quartzite mentioned 
above, of the volcanic agglomerate belonging to the base 
of the Jura-trias, and of the schist, and none need have 
travelled more than a mile or so. 
* Address: Meeting on 5th June, 1908. 
