539 
a precipitous escarpment of about four hundred feet in beiglit, and consists mainly of 
two beds — the upper of red sandstone, with a white baud in the middle ; and the lower 
of a coarse conglomerate containing pebbles of quartz, gneiss, and granite in a matrix 
of sharp white sand. The same escarpment can be traced eastward to near the head 
of the Palmer, forming- the right wall of the valley. The surface of the tabeland on the 
Eoad from Cooktowu to Maytown (on the top of the cliff overlooking the latter) is 
given by Mr. Surveyor White as 1,500 feet, while Maytown is 800 feet, blount Hann 
and the “ High Mountain ” between the escarpment and the Palmer Kivor rise 
respectively to 2,250 and 2,300 feet, and must have stood up as islands in the Desert 
Sandstone waters. 
Mount Daintree, about ton miles west of Palmorville, is an outlier of the Desert 
Sandstone, resting on gneiss, and forms a tableland of about ten acres in extent, 
bounded by sheer cliffs, two or three hundred feet in height, which can only bo scaled in 
one place. On this tableland the timber is stunted and the grass {Triodid) is totally 
different from that on the surrounding land. The cliff is composed of thick -bedded red 
and white siliceous sandstone. One fine-grained white laminated bed is full of plant- 
remains, which, however, are quite undiatinguishable, though somewhat reed-like in 
general appearance. This bed is probably identical with the “ white band ” above 
referred to as occurring in the middle of the upper bed seen on the Palmerville and 
Cooktown road. 
Prom Mount Daintree I obtained (in 1887) a good view of the surrounding 
country. Escarpments of Desert Sandstone extended along the north wall of the valley 
of the Palmer, at distances varying from three to twelve miles, almost without 
interruption, from a point bearing N.N.W. of the mountain to beyond the Maytown and 
Cooktown roads. Subtending an angle from N.H.W to S.W. of Mount Daintree, the 
whole of the country, as far as the eye could reach, was low and nearly level. (This 
is the position assigned by Mr. Norman Taylor to a “ Carboniferous Range ” in the 
Map attached to the account of Hann’s Northern Expedition.) About ten miles 
south-south-west of Mount Daintree, high escarpments of horizontal strata wero visible, 
probably further outliers of the Desert Sandstone.* 
In a Map of the Squatting Runs down the Palmer furnished to the Lands 
Department by Messrs. AVhite and Embly, the words “Desert Sandstone” are 
Written across the back of “ Meron Downs ” Block on the left bank of the Palmer, and 
across the centre of “ Strathleven No. IV.” Block on the right bank of the same river 
(opposite its junction with the Mitchell). I have not seen these localities, but as I 
know Mr. White to be a trustworthy observer, I regard the information as reliable) 
especially as it agrees with Daintree’s observations on the Lower Gilbert. 
Mr. James V. Mulligan, after leaving Palmerville on a prospecting trip, keeping 
round the south-western end of the Main Desert Sandstone tableland, had to cross 
another small table-land between the Palmer and Fahey Creek. f 
Much of the alluvial gold of the Palmer Gold Field has been derived from the 
immediate neighbourhood of the “Conglomerate” or Desert Sandstone tableland, and 
in positions where it is impossible to ascribe its presence to the degradation of local 
reefs. As there is no evidence of any submergence of this district beneath the sea 
ijctwcen Permo-Carboniferous and Cretaceous times, it is probable that the area covered 
1*7 the Desert Sandstone was a land surface for an immensely greater period prior to the 
deposition than it has been since the elevation of the Desert Sandstone, and the uneven 
* Report of the Government Geologist, in Annual Report of the Department of Mines for 1887. 
t Report on Expedition in Search of Gold, &c., in the Palmer District by Mulligan and Party. 
Brisbane : by Authority : 1876. 
