531 
northern extremity of a “range” of hills (where the blacks made a determined stand 
against the intrusion of white men on the first rush to the Palmer), and makes 
more directly for the Palmer. The Battle Camp Range rises to about two hundred 
feet abore the general level of the tableland, and is composed of greenish-grey and 
sometimes reddish sandstones. Mr. Norman Taylor, of the Geological Survey of 
V^ictoria, who accompanied TTann’s Exploring Expedition in 1872, found in the Battle 
Camp Range some fossils, which Mr. Robert Etheridge, E.R.S., described as “ a Hinmtes 
like H. lavetrix, and an Os/rea like 0. Sowerhi/i, Eth.” The discovery of two fossils not 
specifically determinable, and of genera which have a wide range in time, does not count 
for much, but the undoubtedly marine character of the fossils proves at least that this 
portion of the Desert Sandstone was not of lacustrine, fluviatile, or aerial origin. Mr. 
Taylor’s description of the locality is given (from his manuscript notes), as it may aid 
in the re-discovery of the fossiliferous bed, which Mr. A. C. Macmillan has seen, but 
which I have searched for iu vain on four different occasions : — 
“ At a point on the north-east side of an isolated table range (since named I 
believe ‘ Battle Camp’) about four miles west of Camp 42, and close by a blacks’ corrob- 
borcc ground, I discovered, at the foot of the escarpment of horizontal sandstones, a very 
hard siliceous greenish conglomerate, full of lydite and quartz, and, at its junction with 
the overlying sandstones, numerous bivalves (Hinnites and Ostrea). Above is a thick 
series of greenish and reddish-brown, and also white fine grits and sandstones, with 
concretionary ironstone bands. The sandstones contain a large quantity of silieified 
wood, which, with the concretionary ironstone, lies scattered at the foot of the escarp- 
ment.” 
At the “ Kennedy Bend” (in “ Osmer No. 3” Block),* the river cuts through a 
conglomerate (below the level of the base of the Battle Camp Range), containing 
pebbles of conglomerate, quartzite, quartz, greywacke, slate, and a few of granite. 
Higher beds of the series rise north of the Bend, to about three hundred feet above the 
Kennedy. These are horizontal gritty sandstones, white and yellow in colour, with 
much peroxide of iron, often segregating into concretionary masses. It may be 
mentioned that these beds are seen to be penetrated by an intrusive mass of pink 
felstone. 
In 1879 I made two traverses across the western portion of the Desert Sandstone 
Tableland, the first in a south-east direction to the Kennedy Bend, when returning from 
the Coen Gold Field, and the second from the Bend, and keeping a few miles further to 
the west, when starting out for Somerset with a Prospecting Party. 
On the first course, a distance of thirty-five miles was travelled without seeing 
anything but red sandy soil, with the exception of a slight ridge of ferruginous conglome- 
rate, another of ferruginous sandstone, and some horizontal beds of white and yellow 
gritty sandstone in a creek, while to the north-east the continuation of the low range of 
higher beds seen at the Bend was visible in the distance. It ended in a bluff of one 
hundred feet of sandstone resting on granite. Our party had to beat about the bluff 
for five miles before a place was found where the horses could get up. The sandstone 
of the bluff was a very hard, coarse, ferruginous grit, with ironstone nodules and indis- 
tinct plant-remains. 
On the second course, we met with very much similar country, but the edge of the 
tableland was found to present a thickness of at least five hundred feet of sandstone, 
which we found difficult to descend from on to the underlying granite. f It may 
* See Two-mile Map Kennedy District, Slieet 12, 1889. 
t Report on Explorations in Cape York Peninsula, 1879-80. By R. L. Jack. Brisbane: by 
Authority : 1881, 
