Page:Northmost Australia volume 2.djvu/33

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
382
NORTHMOST AUSTRALIA

river between the "Walsh" Station and Palmerville. Warner made the latitude 16° 16′ 59″ S., but according to the 4-mile map it is about 16° 22′.

On 17th July, Hann, Taylor and Tate rode 13 miles SE. up the left bank of the Mitchell and camped. The first 8 miles were on basalt country, in which agates were found. The next 2 miles were on limestone and the remaining 3 miles on slate.

To the right of the route the hills rose into a sandstone-capped tableland which Hann named Taylor's Carboniferous Range. Taylor had already found Glossopteris and other fragmentary plant remains in a portion of the range about a mile south of Camp 16. Some years later he kindly wrote for my use some "Notes on the Geology of Hann's Exploring Expedition."[1] At that time I regarded the whole of the fragmentary sandstone tablelands as belonging to Daintree's "Desert Sandstone" formation (Upper Cretaceous). Subsequent observation made it evident that, whatever their age, Taylor's Range and Mount Mulligan, on the Hodgkinson, were once continuous and were now only separated by the accident of denudation. The Mount Mulligan tableland extends for 16 miles from near Woodville, to the confluence of the Hodgkinson with the Mitchell, a distance of 24 miles. Taylor traced the Taylor's Range for about 12 miles ESE. from Camp 16. The distance intervening between where he left off and Mount Mulligan is only 40 miles, and although I do not know the locality well, I have little doubt that the hill-shading on the 4-mile map passing south of the O.K. Copper Mine correctly indicates the continuity (with gaps, perhaps) of the two ranges. A seam of coal is now known to underlie the whole of the Mount Mulligan tableland, and a railway line from Dimbula now connects the coal with the copper region. Mr. Lionel Ball, of the Geological Survey, has established the Permo-Carboniferous age of the Mount Mulligan beds,[2] and to that age Taylor's Range must also be referred.

On 28th July, an arduous march of 15 miles was made to the east up the valley of the Mitchell over "horrible slate country," the slates, "sharp as knives," proving very severe on the horses. The camp for the night was pitched east of the pinnacled hills south of Groganville (Anglo-Saxon Gold Mine) and north of the O.K. Copper Mine. These hills, named "Warner's Peaks" by Hann, now appear on the maps as "The Pinnacles."

The following day (29th July), an unsuccessful attempt was made to get better travelling on a south-east course away from the river, but the "knife-edged slates" drove the party back to

  1. See Jack & Etheridge, Geology and Palæontology of Queensland, p. 176.
  2. "Notes on Coal at Mount Mulligan." Queensland Government Mining Journal, June, 1909.