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a single bed of coarse, gritty, sharp, white sandstone, about thirty feet thick, containing 
imperfect plant-remains. The sandstone rests on slates and quartzites of the same age 
as the goldfield at Commissioner’s Hill. 
Trom Mount Nation, cliffs of the Desert Sandstone can be seen on the horizon to 
the south and west, the edges of tablelands dividing the Gilbert from the Woolgar and 
Norman. 
In crossing the Newcastle Range, between Carpentaria Downs and the “ Stony 
Etheridge,” the summit for about five miles is a tableland of soft yellow Desert Sand- 
stone. It rests on a thickness of about five hundred feet of a clastic rock, resembling 
a felspar porphyry, which in its turn lies on gneiss and mica schist. The Desert 
Sandstone is nearly horizontal, but has a very slight dip to the west. 
Some twenty-five miles further north, where the same range is crossed by the 
telegraph lino and road from Ilerberton to Georgetown, the road passes over a similar 
clastic rock, on which, at an elevation of about 2,150 feet, by Aneroid, is an outlying 
tableland of Desert Sandstone. 
Down the riirht bank of the Etheridge River, below Georgetown, Mr. A. Gibb 
Maitland, Assistant Geologist, noted in 1889, “ at the head of Conglomerate Creek, a 
tributary of Lane’s Creek, a tableland of Desert Sandstone, the beds forming which 
lie horizontally. The rocks are very coarse-grained, j 2 «a.si-vitreous grits and fine 
conglomerates, the base of which is, by Aneroid, one hundred feet above the town of 
Georgetown.”* The latter is by Aneroid measurement 1,200 feet above sea-level. The 
sandstone rests on quartzites, shales, and diorites very much resembling the rocks 
prevalent on Commissioner’s Hill, Gilberton. 
Down the Gilbert River, below Crooked Creek, the Desert Sandstone occurs at 
a level probably one thousand feet lower than at the heads of the river. At one point 
seven miles down the river from Crooked Creek, and two miles to the west, a small 
isolated hill had the following clitf-sectiou : — 
Feet. 
Yellow, brown, and white sandstone ... ... ... ... ... ... 50 
Hard, brown, ferruginous, and siliceous sandstone, in part j'aasi-vitreous 2 
Soft, fine-grained, white sandstone 15 
Brown and yellow siliceous grit ... ... ... ... ... ••• 15 
Granite debris, not waterworn 5 
Total 88 
These beds rested on granite, about one hundred and thirty feet above the level 
of the Gilbert River. Smaller Desert Sandstone hills could be seen about three mdes 
to the south, and extending from north to north-east, at a distance of about five miles 
from the river. 
A mile west of O’Brien’s Station, on the Georgetown and Croydon Road, sand- 
stones and conglomerates of the Desert Sandstone Series are seen on both sides of the 
road, and nearly at the level of the road. The road and telegraph line, a little further 
west, get upon a low Desert Sandstone tableland, over which they are carried as far as 
the Gilbert River Telegraph Station. The road, after crossing the Gilbert River at the 
telegraph station, traverses Desei-t Sandstone for five miles and a-half. Some porphyry 
ridges are next crossed over, rising to a height of perhaps one hundred feet above the level 
of the Desert Sandstone. Three miles further a red bluff, and a mile further a white 
bluff of Desert Sandstone, are seen on the south side of the road. After crossing the 
Little River, the road rounds a cliff of Desert Sandstone on the south, and another i*' 
Report on the Lane’s Creek Diggings. Brisbane ; by Authority : 1890. 
