696 
Of the Gympie drifts, Mr. Eancls writes as follows * : — 
“An alluvial deposit occurs in many parts of the district of an older date than 
the deposits being formed by the existing streams. It consists chiefly of a drift of large 
waterworn pebbles, varying in size from half-an-inch to eight or more inches in 
diameter, the pebbles consisting of quartz and of hardened jasperised sandstone. 
There are also layers of ferruginous grit and conglomerate. 
“This older alluvium can be seen in many places in the western side of the 
river; on some ridges on the western side of Deep Creek, about three miles from its 
mouth ; near the Bri,sbane road on the Six-mile Creek ; to the north of Gympie 
patches of it are met with here and there for the whole of the distance to Maryborough. 
Close to Maryborough, in the Tinana Division, a shaft that was sunk on a ridge passed 
through some thickness of this drift, and gold was found in one or two of the pebbles 
on their being broken. 
“ There is another alluvial deposit, probably of still earlier date, which forms a 
capping to the One-Mile (Eed Hill) and Surface Hills in Gympie. This deposit 
consists of yellow and red stratified sandy and aluminous silts, with, in places, masses 
of pebbles and boulders of quartzite, which are well shown in the new railway cutting 
on the north side of Red Hill. There is no evidence as to the exact age of these deposits, 
beyond that they are newer than the reefs in the Gympie Beds below, as they are not 
inter.sected by them. A little waterworn gold has been found on parts of Red Hill; 
and on Surface Hill, in the Channon-street cutting, small nuggets of gold have been 
picked up. Small prospects of gold are nearly always obtained on working the soil on 
Surface Hill." 
The Upper and Older Alluvia of the Stanthorpe tin-mining district are probably 
contemporaneous with similar drifts on the New England side of the border, which 
Mr. David classes as Pliocene. 
It is quite possible that the Cape, Gympie, and Severn, and many other ancient 
alluvial drifts may turn out to be Pliocene, but at present we have no direct evidence to 
enable us to distinguish them from Post-Tertiary drifts. They probably never were 
covered by basaltic lavas, as any erosive agent capable of denuding the latter would in 
all likelihood have cleared away the underlying incoherent drifts also. 
In my opinion the drifts of the Severn Valley point to a period of heavy 
rainfall, accompanied probably by the occasional melting of snow. A somewhat more 
rigorous climate than the pre.sent probably prevailed, but a careful search failed 
to reveal striated stones or anything indicative of a true glacial period. 
Mr. Henry G. Stokes, who has collected near Oxley a number of beautifully 
preserved plant remains, which have been submitted to Professor Baron Von 
Ettlngshausen for determination, has kindly given me the following notes “ On the 
Occurrence of Tertiary Beds in the neighbourhood of Brisbane” : — 
“Between Sherwood and Wolston stations, on the Ipswich Railway Line, and 
extending for some distance to the south-south-east of Sherwood, a series of beds occurs, 
consisting of pale and yellow-coloured, coarse and fine grained, argillaceous and 
ferruginous sandstones, sandy shales, and clays. 
“The principal rock in this series is a pale-coloured variety of sandstone, 
consisting of an abundance of small angular and sub-angular quartz grains, and white 
mica, with clay, and a little oxide of iron and carbonate of lime as the cementing 
material. It is not a very coherent stone, and, with the exception of those portions in 
proximity to an intrusive rock, weathers rapidly on exposure. 
Report on the Gympie Gold Field. Brisbane ; by Authority : 1889. 
