529 
bedded Desert Sandstone. One of these, which I visited, showed, in the escarpment by 
which it was bounded, fifty feet of yellow siliceous sandstone, somewhat ferruginous, on 
fifty feet of white aluminous grit with quartz grains. Again, on 
Sellheim and Eosetta Creek, fragments of the Desert Sandstone tableland are seen on 
either side of the road from the Silver Mines to Mount Conway, resting on syenite^ 
“ On the divide between St. Paul’s Creek and Cattle Creek, the granite is capped 
with beds of Desert Sandstone, which is made up of beds of white Bandstone wit i 
layers of quartz pebbles, and beds of conglomerate made up chiefly of ^ 
quartz. Tlie Desert Sandstone forms bold cliffs which face the north, an 
gradually thinned away by denudation towards the sonth. It extends about three miles 
across in a north and sonth direction. Beyond this, granite shows again in the creeks 
and gullies. The Desert Sandstone beds are nearly horizontal, t 
In the neighbourhood of Cooktown the Desert Sandstone is seen under some of 
its most interesting aspects, insomuch as it contains coal-seams, and is associated wi 
immense outbursts of volcanic activity. t iq'tq -fiio 
On the north shore of the estuary of the Endeavour Eiver, I saw, lu 1 7 , 
lowest beds of the formation resting horizontally on five hundred feet or more of vertica 
slates. A thick bed of conglomerate at the base was succeeded ^7 about foui feet of 
grey shales, the uppermost eight inches of which were mixed with 
■ At the heads of Oakey Creek, the Desert Sandstone is seen resting horizontafiy 
«.c upttn ed ed“ oUu/Boweh We, (P.™ 
in turn lie unconformably on older slates and quartzites. 
In 1879 I wrote as follows § :— j 
“Erom the starting-point at Cooktown an extensive view is obtained to the north 
and west, the vaUeys of the Endeavour and its tributaries forming " J 
ground, which has the effect of throwing into strong relief the contour of the “°^ains 
beyond. No one can fail to be struck by the immense masses of 
which cap the mountains in continuous tablelands at the heads of 
Oakey, and in isolated fragments at Cunningham’s Eange, Connor s ^^a ® 
Bedford. It must be obvious to the most superficial observer that the bonzontal dopos t 
must have been continuous at no very distant date, even over the area w me i is 
only represented by fragments standing alone on pinnacles of slate or * * * § 
the southern shores of the waters in which it was deposited were fonned by the 1 fty 
ranges from which the Annan, Normanby, and Laura Eivers f 
this limit, or ancient shore, all the mountains which rise to the height ® - 
hundred feet above the level of the sea ‘catch’ (to use a graphic .^^!wTas 
bottom of the sandstone, while from those which do not attain tins altitude, as well as 
from the valleys, the deposit has been entirely removed by denudation. , ^ 
“With one notableexception, the sandstone, from the ByerstownEoad a d 
to the Morgan, rests upon a formation of nearly vertical strata 
quartzite, and greywacke. The edges of the slates and other up of Oakey 
the most part north and south. T he exception ref erred to occurs in the val y ^ 7 
* Eeport by R. L. Jack on the Sollheim Silver Mines and Surrounding District. Brisbane . by 
^"‘'"SepoTon the Cape River Gold Rlald, by Willi.un H. Rands, p. IG. Brisbane = by Authority = 
J Second Report by R. L. Jack on the Progress of the Search for Coal m the Cook District. 
Brisbane ; by Authority : 1879. . tj.-pt Tnck Brisbane : by Authority : 
§ Report on Explorations in Cape York Peninsula, 1879-80. ByR.L.Jack. misoa 
1881. 
[1 Very uneven I have since found it. 
2 K 
