EXPLORATION IN NORTHERN QUEENSLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 1158, 7 February 1874, Page 10

EXPLORATION IN NORTHERN QUEENSLAND.

The discoveries in Northern Queensland (observes the Argus, a Rockhampton journal) follow each other in such qnicli succession that one is apt to become bewildered at their extent, variety, and richness. . Harm's expedition, though but partially successful, seems to have given an impulse to discoveries, which we think will not be spent till the whole country up to Cape York has been thoroughly explored. Accordingly the present seems a favourable occasion to anticipate what wo may expect as the result, and this we think will far surpass the public expectations of the present time. There has been an idea since the time of Kennedy that Cape York Peninsula is nothing but a mass of oare granite, which never can be turned to human use, but this is supported by

evidence of the very slightest nature, and ia quite out of the common order of things. Those who entertain it seem to have forgotten that the main range, vajying from 4000 to 6000 ft. high, runs through it, and a range of mountains of that height implies in thai? latitude a fair share of rain, with rivers and rivulets running from them, in all directions. Each of these rivers will necessarily have its delta or alluvial strip of land, admirably fitted for sugar growing and all kinds of tropical agriculture ; and we may hope, in two or three years, to see the most of them occupied by planters aad speculators from all parts of the colonies ; for who will now go to Fiji or other remote islands to grow sugar or cotton when it is found there is plenty of land in tropical Australia within tke reach of law and civilisation 1 Then, as regards minerals, there is no reason to anticipate that the great range and its spars will change their character as they approach the tropics. Indeed, they are more likely to increase in value, and six or seven years ago, Mr OJarke, the veteran geologist, read an elaborate paper to the Sydney Philosophical Society, iv which he gave it as his opinion that, as the main range or backbone of the continent proceeded north, it would become richer and richer in minerals — an idea which the Northern gold-diggings go far to countenance.