520 
in tile Permo-Carboniferous Coal Measures, re-appcars in ibe Desert Sandstone. As yet 
its presence has not been detected in the Tceniopteris-hesxm^ Burrum Bed.s, nor in the 
T(eniopteris-\)ea,vmg Ipswich Beds, nor in the Lower Cretaceous fiolling Downs Formation. 
Whether its absence from these formations is simply due to imperfect collecting, or 
whether the plant really migrated from the Australian Begion after Permian times, to 
re-appear at the close of Mesozoic times, there is no evidence to show. It may any day be 
found in the lower members of the Mesozoic Period. A long controversy was carried on as 
to the age of the Olossopteris-h&Anng beds, the late Eev. W. B. Clarke and Mr. Daintree 
insisting that the plant was Palaiozoic — a view which received confirmation when it was 
found on the Bowen Biver, together with P roductus, Spirifer, and other Palaeozoic 
fossils of the Lower or Marine Series of the Bowen Biver Coal Field; while Pro- 
fessor McCoy restricted the plant to the Mesozoic formations. It has been generally 
understood that the question had been settled triumphantly in favour of Mr. Clarke’s 
view, but we must now admit that Qlossopteris also, as a genus, existed in Permo- 
Carboniferous times, and survived till the close of the Mesozoic Period. Glossop- 
teris occurs in India in Jurassic beds, and it may for some unknown reason have 
migrated to that country during the period in which it has been missed from Australian 
formations. 
Mr. Bauds discovery leaves no further room for doubt as to the correctness of 
the observation of Mr. bforman Taylor, who refers to Glossopteris in the sandstone 
tablelands between the Mitchell and the Walsh, as will be subsequently mentioned — "an 
observation which I was inclined to explain away by some theory of the Desert Sand- 
stone of that region being a distinct formation from that in which Qlossopteris was 
found to occur. I believed that the section must be something like that seen on Oaky 
Creek and the blormanby and Little Kennedy Bivei’s in the Cooktown District, where 
the Desert Sandstone rests unconformably on the upturned edges of Qlossopteris- 
bearing strata. Mr. Taylor, naturally, considering the views accepted at the time 
regarding the age of Qlossopteris, mapped the tableland in question as Carboniferous ; 
but there can no longer be any difficulty in recognising it as belonging to the Desert 
Sandstone, of which it is evidently a denuded fragment. 
Mount Nicholson, on the west side of the Cloncurry Biver, about four miles 
north of the Township of Cloncurry, is a tableland which, as seen from any point of the 
compass, shows unmistakably a horizontal capjfing of stratified rocks resting on older 
rocks. I found (in September, 1881) the slopes to be of a decomposed gneissose rock, 
and the top* had a thickness of twenty feet of coarse, gritty, siliceous sandstone, 
occasionally pebbly (the pebbles mainly of white quartz), horizoutallv bedded. The 
sandstone was “baked” throughout, and in parts might be fairly described as a quartzite. 
Tip the Cloncurry the “ Soldier’s Cap ” and two other small tablelands show 
cappings of horizontal Desert Sandstone resting on slate. 
Two outliers of horizontal Desert Sandstone rest on upturned slate and quartzite 
rocks near the head of Cabbage-tree Creek, a tributary of the Leichhardt. 
The late Mr. Eichard Daintree refers f to the Desert Sandstone as extending from 
Donor’s Hills on the north to the Dugald Biver on the south (left bank of Cloncurry 
Biver). “Again, on the same parallel, between the Norman and Gilbert, two degrees 
of longitude could be passed over without seeing any but the ‘ Desert Bocks ’ exposed, 
except in the deeper valleys.” The rocks here referred to come down to not very far 
above the sea-level. 
* About 1,200 feet above the sea-level, but my Aneroid had become unreliable. 
+ General Eeport upon the Northern District. By Eichard Daintree, Esquire, late Government 
Geologist for Northern Queensland. Brisbane : by Authority ; 1870. 
