New South Wales . 
109 
1ms hitherto been done to work out the intricacies of Australian 
^eologv, to accomplish which in minute and thorough detail will 
probably require the united exertions of many a worker in the 
field and the cabinet to the end of the next century at least. In 
the preceding pages it has been my lot to mention many of my 
own discoveries ; but it has not been with any desire to overrate 
mv endeavours or exertions; and some I have altogether omitted. 
I 11 tliejtfr,?/. Edition of this paper mention was merely made of 
the Cape York Peninsula, where ferruginous deposits occur on 
the lower slopes and bases of porphyry hills. 1 may repeat 
here what was added in the second Edition. Those deposits 
were examined at the Mint, and no gold was detected ; but on a 
recent comparison of their lithological character with that of 
Tertiary beds from Elemington (in Victoria), I believe them to 
be, if not Tertiary, of similar origin to the Latcritc of India, and 
of the Islands in the intermediate sea. 
Dr. ltattray, of H.M.S, u Salamander,” who furnished me with 
a map, and a collection to illustrate it, from the neighbourhood 
of Cape York, and whose paper was read by me, in his absence, 
before the Royal Society of New South "Wales, more recently^ 
published bis views in extenso before the Geological Society of 
London, lie therein attributes to me an opinion that the thick 
sandstones of the Peninsula are of the age of the llawkesbury 
rocks of New South Wales. 
I do not remember that 1 have expressed any opinion on tlr.s 
sandstone ; what was submitted to me was considered by me far 
younger. That such sandstone, and even older deposits between 
Cape York and the Gilbert River, may exist in the interior of 
the Peninsula, is far from improbable. The data at present are 
insufficient for further comment. It may belong to the Desert 
sandstone of Daintree. 
But this inference may he permitted, that as Cape York is so 
short a distance from the gold-bearing deposits of New Guinea, 
and as, as is now proved, all the rivers running to the Gulf of Car¬ 
pentaria from the Mitchell to the Nicholson inclusive rise in 
auriferous ranges, gold will probably he found in some parts ot 
the country along the back-bone of the Peninsula; and although 
my past examination of the rocks in the Louisiade Archipelago 
lias not proved gold to exist there, yet 1 agree with Mr. Dain¬ 
tree in his last Report to the Queensland Government, that the 
strike of the older formations justifies the belief* that the Archi¬ 
pelago, and, 1 may add, other portions of the lands insulated in 
that part of the Pacific, will eventually furnish their quota of the 
precious metal. 
Several collections of New Guinea rocks have been sent to me ; 
but although it was asserted strenuously that gold was found 111 
them, in the district visited by TI.M.S. ££ Basilisk,” I have not 
