196 
Mines and Mineral Statistics, 
Towards the north of the Cape York Peninsula the sandstones 
are barren of fossils, and about the Cape seem to have more the 
character of Tjaterite, resting on Porpliyry. 
I\Ir. Wilkinson, in his researches among the tin-mines of New 
England, recognized the drifts wliicli in A^ictoria are considered 
Pliocene ; and Mr. Norman Taylor and the late Professor 
Thomson, in their paper “ On the occurrence, of JJiaviond near 
Mudgee' {Trans. Rog. Soc. ofN.td.W., 1870,^.91) make mention 
of older and newer Pliocene drift. Whether there be any fo?sil 
evidence for the propriety of these terms I know not. That, there 
are drifts of ditferent parts of one cpocdi I believe, and, perhaps, 
the divisions are good, even if the designations arc too refined. 
Dr. Duncan has advised us to postpone the Lyellian designations 
for the present. Having very recently visited almost every 
locality mentioned in the paper, and examined for myself much 
of the alluvia of the (lold Fields in a large portion of the county 
of Phillip, I am prepared to testify to the extreme fliithfulness of 
the description given by Messrs. Taylor and Thomson. My 
remark, therefore, about the term Pliocene is not to be taken as 
complaining of it, but as a justification for the introduction of 
some of tlie drifts in question under the present liead. A dis- 
tinction of time is however clearly marked in the character of the 
various deposits or in the difVcrenco of botanical remains. 
Perliaps some of these de])osits in tlie Gold Fields, as w(;ll as 
some of the shelly conglomerates at tlio mouth of the Flinders, 
had better be considered as belonging to the next division of my 
subject; and tliough placed as Tertiary, 1 am not salisfied they 
are such, as uo positive proof exists by unmistakable evidence 
that they arc so. 
In the iar Western interior, beyond the Darling, slielly deposiis 
of fine sandstone have been reached in well-making, and by iho 
kindness of my friend, ATr. AFooi’e, C.C.L., of the Albert District, 
1 have been just ])ut in ])uss('saion of several good specimens, 
together with fossil wood, apjiarently not very ancient, which I 
believe to bo Tertiary. 
Tlicre is no doubt a fine watenvorn drift over largo areas of 
the Auriferous and Stauniferons n^gioiis and in the sonthorn part 
of Alaneero ; but in many cases tlu* drift betraj's its origin, as the 
result of the disintegration of conglnjiieratcs, and sucli T bidieve 
to be the origin of tlio drift seen by Professor Liversidge near 
AVallerawang. (Ileport on Iron Ore and Coal Deposits, read 
before Poyal Society, 9 Dec., IS7 t.) Tie compares it with the 
diamond drift at Pingera, alhuling to the “ noduh‘s of conglom- 
erate” in (‘a(?h ; but this conglomerate may be found in situ in 
the coal-bearing bt'ds close at band. 
Alany drifts have luuloubtedU^ been dispersed and rc-agglom- 
crated, and again dispersed from one age to amdlier, and the 
