204 
Minefi and Mineral Slathtics, 
be hoped that now the Government has made up its mind 
to undertake the work from its own resources, pecuniary and 
official, more will be accomplished than has hitherto been done 
to work out the intricacies of Australian geology, to accomplish 
whicli in minute and thorough detail, will probably require the 
united exertions of many a Avorker in the field aud the cabinet 
to the middle of the next century at least. In the preceding 
pages it has been my lot to mention many of my own discoveries; 
but it has not been Avith any desire to overrate my endeavours or 
exertions ; and some I have altogether omitted. 
In the first Edition of this paper mention Avas merely made of 
the Cape York Peninsula, AA'hcro ferruginous deposits occur on 
the loAver elopes and bases of porphyry hills. I may repeat 
here Avhat Avas added in tlio second Edition. Those depo-sits 
Avere examined at the Mint, and no gold Avas detected ; hut on a 
recent comparison of their lithological character with that of 
Tertiary hods from Flemington (in Victoria), I believe them to 
be, if not Tertiary, of similar origin to the laterite of India, and 
of the Islands in the intermediate sea. 
Dr. Eattray, of II.M.S. “Salamander,’’ who furnished me AA'ith 
a map, and a collection to illustrate it, from the neighbourhood 
of Cape York, and Avhose paper was read by me, in his absence, 
before the Eoyal Society of !XeAv South Wales, more recently 
published his aIcaa's in extenso before the Geological Society of 
London. lie therein attributes to me an opinion that the thick 
sandstones of the Peninsula are of the age of the llaAvkesburv 
rocks of New South Wales. 
I do not remember that I have expressed any opinion on this 
sandstone ; Avhat was submitted to me Avas considered by me far 
younger. That such sandstone, and even older deposits between 
Cape Y"ork and the Gilbert EIa'cv, may exist in the interior of 
the Peninsula, is fur from improbable. The data at present are 
insufficient for further comment. It may belong to the Desert 
sandstone of Daintree. 
Eut this inference may be permitted that, as Cape York is so 
short a distance from the gold-bearing deposits of New Guinea, 
and as is noAV proved, all the rivers running to the Gulf of Carpen- 
taria, from the Mitchell to the Nicholson inclusive, rise in 
auriferous ranges, gold will probably be found in some parts of 
the country, along the back-bone of the Peninsula ; and although 
my past examination of the rocks in the Louisiade Archipelago 
has not proved gold to exist there, yet I agree Avith Mr. Dain- 
tree, in his last Ee])ort to the Queensland Government, that the 
strike of the older formations justifies the belief that that Archi- 
pelago, aud, I may add, other portions of the lands insulated in 
that part of the Pacific, aaIII eventually furnish their quota of the 
precious metal. 
