GHAPTEE X. 
THE PERMO-CARBONIFEROUS continued. 
THE STAR FORMATION. 
Star Basin forms an area of about thirty-six square miles, at the junction of the 
^rcat and Little Star Rivers, which are tributaries of the Upper Burdekin. Disposed 
''^ith only a gentle dip, and consisting of unaltered stratified rocks, it contrasts in a 
striking manner with the surrounding granites, gneisses, slates, and schists. The 
latter, occurring between the Star and Koelbottom Rivers, and forming the country- 
I’oek of the Star Gold Field, and of the now much better known Silver Field of 
■^Egentine, as well as the stanniferous porphyry of Running Creek, are of much older 
‘late than the rocks which I named, in 1878, the “ Star Beds,” and which I then 
i’®garded (following Messrs. Daintree and R. Etheridge, P.R.S.) as Upper Devonian. 
In a hill about three and a-half miles south-south-east of the Star Station a 
Humber of beds of coarse hard siliceous sandstone or grit, with quartz pebbles, rest 
HH granite and dip to W. at an angle of 12°, presenting to the east an escarpment 
'Uiich rises some two hundred feet above the level of the granite. The same beds are 
®een in Horse Creek. Their total thickness cannot bo less than three hundred feet. 
On Dinner Creek, the beds which are seen in closest proximity are coarse grits 
Hud conglomerates, with pebbles of quartz and lydian-stone. Although these strata 
probably on the same horizon as the grits of the hill referred to in the last paragraph, 
®y dip at 20° towards the position where the metamorphic rocks appear at the surface. 
Ere is probably, therefore, a fault between the two formations at this qolace. 
Where the Little Star River enters the Basin from the north, the lowest of the 
Ur Beds open to observation are coarse gritty sandstones, containing a few pebbles 
“-H*! dipping to S. at an angle of 30°. 
On the west side of the Great Star River, where the grits at the base of the 
juries might have been expected to reapjiear at the surface, they were not observed. It 
dHite possible that they may have thinned out in the six miles that intervene, 
k'li Supposing the dip of 12° to continue without interruption from the grit of the 
! down the course of Horse Creek, a series of strata equal to a vertical thickness of 
hundred feet should intervene between the grit and the strata next exposed to view, 
Hbout twenty feet of bluish shales, somewhat calcareous, which dip to S.E. at 20°, 
im branch of Sandy Creek near an old grave. The shales are covered with 
of Le.pidodendron. Similar shales, also I’ich in Ze/)ifkir?ew(7roM-impressions, 
th' '^**'*^ eastern branch of the creek, whei’e they are turned up on end. In 
ibe^ H fault probably divides the outcrop of the metamorphic slates, &c., from 
'"ar^Beds, concealing the lowest members of the latter series. 
®anr! iu ascending order, after a gap, estimated at thirty-five feet, is a bed of 
Sai dipping to the south, and about ten feet in thickness, seen at the mouth of 
Biv ^ Above the sandstone, where Corner Creek falls into the Great Star 
twelve feet of green shales dipping at 30° to S.S.W. These shales are 
® iDglyrich in organic remains, among which the following have been recognised; 
Lepidodendron australe, McCoy. 
,, veltheimianim, Sternb. 
Actinocrinus, sp. ind., PI. 7, fig. 9. 
1 
