CHAPTER XXXVI. 
POST-TEETIAET AND EECENT. THEEMAL AND OTHEE SPEINGS. 
STANNIFEROUS DRIFTS, VIZ.; STANTHORPE, MOUNT SPURGEON, AND PASCOE TIN 
FIELDS. 
Sir Thomas Mitchell, in January, 1842, sent to England some specimens of 
JJiprotodon “from the Condamine Eiver, in Lat. 28° S., Long. 150° E.” It is 
evident that the Latitude and Longitude are wrong, and Mr. George E. Bennett 
conchides that the part of the river’s course referred to must ho between Leyburn 
and Tandilla, 
Leichhardt is quoted by Mr. Bennett f as having written, apropos of some fossils 
sent home by him on 10th July, 1844, from the Darling Downs : “ The plains are filled 
by an alluvium of considerable depth, as wells, dug fifty to sixty feet deep, have been 
sunk within it. The plains and creeks in which fossils have been found are— Mr. 
Hodgson s Creek, Campbell’s Creek, Mr. Isaacs’ Creek [Gowrie Creek], and Oakey 
Creek. They pass all into and through immense plains on the west side of the 
Condamine, into which they fall. The bones are either found in tho bed of the creek, 
particularly in the mud of dned-up waterholes, or in the banks of the creek, in a red 
^amy breccia, or in a bed of pebbles, containing many trachyte pebbles from the Coast 
Eange, from the west side of which these creeks descend.’’ 
In his “ Journal,’’ Leichhardt wrote + in the end of September, 1844 
. “We passed the stations of Messrs. Hughes and Isaacs, and of Mr. Coxen, and 
arrived on the 30th September at Jimba [Jimbour?], where we were to bid farewell to 
Civilisation. 
1 These stations are established on creeks which come down from the western 
s opes o e ^oast lange^ . . . and meander through plains of more or less extent 
0 join le on amine Eiver. . . . These plains have become remarkable as the 
depositaries oi remains of extinct species of animals. 
“ Mr. Isles’ Station is particularly rich in these fossil remains ; and they have like- 
wise been found in the bods and banks of Mr. Hodgson’s and of Mr. Campbell’s Creeks, 
andalso of Oakey Creek. At Isaacs’ Creek [Gowrie Creek] they occur together with 
Eecent freshwater shells of species still living in the neighbouring ponds, and with marly 
and calcareous concretions, which induces me to suppose that those plains were covered 
with large sheets of water, fed probably by calcareous springs connected with the 
basaltic range, and that huge animals, fond of water, were living either on the rich 
herbage surrounding these ponds or lakes or browsing upon the leaves and branches of 
trees forming thick brushes on the slopes of the neighbouring hills ’’ 
Mr. George E Beimett (son of Dr. George Bennett, of Sydney, and an enthusiastic 
naturalist and coUector of Darling Downs fossils), in the Paper above referred to, gives 
the following notes : — 
• Howrie Creek, from the Gowrie Junction Bailway Station until it 
goes into Westbrook C reek, is more or less rich in fossils. The portion from the 
‘Notes on Rambles in Search of Fo.,3il Remains on the Darling Downs ri87G 1 Oueensla^ 
Philosophical Society’s Annual Report for 1877. .L-owns. (Jueenslam 
t Loc. cit. 
t Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia, p. 1. London, 1847. 
