28 
The Queensland Naturalist. 
VoL. I. 
THE BRISBANE TERTIARIES * 
By Sydney B. J. Skertchly, First President, 
Late of H.M. Geological Surveys of England and 
• Queensland. 
The following is a short sketch of the Tertiary beds 
to which I propose to give the working name of the Brisbane 
Tertiaries. It is selected for convenience, not as being 
accurate, for the beds do not occur in the city itself, though 
they come close up it. In the absence of definite strati- 
graphical and palaeontological evidence as to their precise 
position, a territorial designation is clearly the best, and as 
Cminda and Oxley, where the beds are best exposed, are 
quite small places, residential suburbs of the capital, the 
convenience of geologists at a distance is best studied by 
the adoption of a name which at once stamps the locality. 
The history of the beds is as follows : — Dr. R. L. 
Jack, in his “ Creology of Queensland ” (1892), states that 
Mr. H. G. Stokes gave him some notes on “ The Occurrence 
oi Tertiary Beds in tlie neighbourhood of Brisbane,” which 
he reproduces. Mr. Stokes clearly recognised (a) that the 
beds, soft sandstones, clays, and loams, were distinct from 
the Ipswich beds ; (h) that they underlaid the Basalt ; 
(c) that they extended over many square miles between 
Sherwood and Runcorn ; and (d) that they contained a 
flora rich in dicotyledonous plants. Dr. Jack “ went over 
the section carefully,” but failed to see “ any evidence of 
an uuconformability of more importance than many local 
unconformabilities which occur in the Ipswicli beds. 
His conclusion is, “ I should incline to regard Mr. Stokes’s 
fossils as additions to the flora of the Ipswich Formation 
ratlier than as evidence of the presence of Tertiary strata. 
The wliole question can, however, remain in abeyance 
pending Baron von Ettinghausen’s determination of the 
fossi's.” 
Subsequently the learned Baron sent in a report showing 
clearly^ that the fossils were of the well-known Tertiary 
facies, abounding in European forms — oak. elm, beech, etc., 
such as characterise all the Tertiary floras of Australasia. 
I have not seen the report, "which was never published. 
Our president, Mr. J. Shirley, in 1897, published his 
‘‘ Additions to the Fossil Flora of Queensland.” and says 
“ at present I prefer to follow Mr. Jack.” He tells us the 
Baron determined sixty-three species — fifty-six dicotyledons, 
three monocotyledons, three conifers and one fern and 
that he referred them to the Cretaceous owing to their 
affinity with the Westpl>alian flora of that age. Mr. Shirley 
♦Address: Meeting Field Naturalists* Club, 27th July, 1907. 
