Queensland

QUEENSLAND, a state of the Commonwealth of Australia, occupying 670,500 sq. miles (22.54%) in the north-east of the continent. A coast-line of 3,00o miles—after that of Western Australia the longest of any individual State—bounds it on the north from the Gulf of Carpentaria and on the north-east and east from the Coral Sea and the Pacific Ocean, Cape York Penin sula being the only outstanding feature of the horizontal profile. In the west the boundary runs successively with that of North Australia and Central Australia along long. 138° E., with that of South Australia along lat. 26° S. and long. 141° E. to the north west corner of New South Wales. On the south the boundary marches with that of New South Wales along lat. 29° S., by the Upper Darling (Barwon-Macintyre-Dumaresq) rivers and the Macpherson Range to Point Danger. The waters and islands to the north of Cape York nearly to the coast of New Guinea, as well as the Great Barrier Reef, are included within the political boundaries. The maximum length (north–south) is c. 1,300 miles; the maximum breadth (east–west) c. goo miles.

Physiography.

Physiographically the area falls into two main divisions, the eastern highlands and plateaux and the western plains and lowlands, each of these again containing two main elements. Lowlands occupy the north-west and south-west corner of the State, viz., a broad fringe round the Gulf of Carpentaria. (q.v.) and irregular semicircles in the south-west and south, por tions of the Lake Eyre and Upper Darling basins respectively. Mostly under Soo ft. above sea-level they are relieved here and there by low swellings (Grey, Beal, McGregor "ranges") and rise gradually eastwards as gently undulating country to levels of about I,000 ft. They consist superfi cially mainly of younger (Cre taceous–Tertiary) rocks covered in the lower parts by spreads of (flood) alluvium and the Great Artesian Basin (max. bore-depth 7,00o ft.) underlies practically the whole, and also extends be yond them (v. inf.). Between the Gulf and the interior plains a broad swell or saddle (5oo–i,000 ft.) of older (Palaeozoic) rocks —the Selwyn and Kynuna highlands—connects the eastern highlands with the Barkly Table land (North Australia) and the great tableland of Western Aus tralia and brings valuable mineral deposits near to the surface.

Eastwards the lowlands merge gradually into highlands which occupy the eastern two-thirds of the State. They consist of : (a) A broad belt of uplands and plateaux (upwards of i,000 ft.) due partly to up-warping of the crust or, where they are higher, usually to great basalt flows. Cape York Peninsula is flanked along the east by a low sandstone capped ridge which mounts southwards. From its south-eastern corner the main belt begins and runs southwards to about Charle ville, Roma, and the south-eastern corner of the State. (Cf. the

basalt Darling Downs.) Of the few parts which rise above 2,000 ft. (e.g., Clarke Range; Buckland Tableland) the most noteworthy is the Atherton Plateau in the north-east, where an area of c. 15,000 sq. miles all over 2,000 ft. rises eastwards to over 4,000 ft. (Mount Bartle Frere, 5,438 ft.) and falls abruptly upon the coast. This belt now forms the main watershed. (b) Along the coast runs a line of granite masses—and in the south-east a series of volcanic (Tertiary) cones (Peak Range and Glasshouse Moun tains)—which are the relics of a former range and earlier water shed now largely broken down and submerged. For the remark able eastern and north-eastern coast of Queensland, with its islands, rock promontories, north-south inlets, sunken plains, and the beauty, amounting sometimes to grandeur, of its mountain buttressed sounds, is due to a series of vertical movements, in which subsidence has on the whole predominated, and which have cut transversely across the former relief. Thus the Great Barrier Reef (q.v.) has probably been built upon the submerged edges of the former land-mass, while the flat shorelines and low shelving plains of the Gulf of Carpentaria (q.v.) are apparently due to elevation. In this surface, not itself naturally rugged except along the east, the coastward-draining streams are excavating consider able basins, eroding out gorges, sharpening residual highland strips into "ranges" and introducing a scenery of wild and broken upper scarplands, roomier and richer lower valleys and, often, silt choked deltaic plains. The natural drainage of Queensland, which includes many fine streams, is of four main types: the Gulf, the eastern coast, the Darling (Barwon), and the Lake Eyre (Eyre, Cooper's, etc., Creeks, Diamantina, and others). The subject has been referred to under AUSTRALIA : Drainage, and, broadly speak ing, only the streams of the two first types are perennial and of much economic value. On the other hand, practically the whole of the interior south-west of a line from Normanton (Gulf of Car pentaria) to Warwick (except a semicircle westwards from Clon curry)—in all 376.000 sq. miles or 56% of the State—is underlain by the water-bearing beds of the Great Artesian basin, of which some 5o,00o sq. miles of "intake" beds are exposed along the east ern highlands and are thought to receive seepage and soakage from that source. Water is struck at depths varying from 10 ft.-7,000 ft. and the 1,362 flowing wells (1926) yielded nearly 292 mill. gal. a day, besides which some 1,800 other wells yielded "sub artesian" or pumped supplies. In the nine years 1914-23 the yield of the Queensland wells diminished by 4.6% per ann. or, averag ing the yield with the number of bores, 6% per ann.