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THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 FEB 26 455 
 
 559.42 
 W868 
 
 GEOLOGY LIBRARY 
 
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 SOUTH AUSTRALIA 
 
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 OLOGY OF 
 
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 ‘ Ainsi, j’étais soutenu dans ce travail par Vintérét égal qu’il promettait ¢ 
 
 pour la science générale de finatomie, base essentielle de toutes celles qui traitent de 
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 THIRD CHAMBER. 
 
 MOSQUITO PLAINS. 
 
 CAVES, 
 
GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS IN 
 
 SOUTH AUSTRALIA : 
 
 PRINCIPALLY IN THE DISTRICT SOUTH-EAST OF ADELAIDE. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. JULIAN EDMUND WOODS 
 
 F.G.S., F.R.S.V., F.P.S., &c. 
 
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 Exe TEAC On KOvOEY éuTrodwY ETI, 
 
 JESCHYLUS, Prom. Vinct. 18. 
 
 LONDON: 
 LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, ROBERTS, & GREEN. 
 MELBOURNE, VICTORIA: H, T. DWIGHT, 
 1862. 
 
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 ‘(THE PAST CAMPAIGN’ ‘DHE PRINOB OF WALES IN CANADA’ ETC. : 
 THIS: WORK 
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PREFACE. 
 
 HIS Work needs a few words of explanation. 
 
 It has been written as much for circulation in 
 
 the Colonies as for home. In the former, the num- 
 ber of scientific readers is comparatively few, 
 though in no part of the world, perhaps, is a 
 greater interest felt in matters of the kind. For 
 this reason, the Author has entered more into detail, 
 and given more explanations, than he would have 
 done had the Work been intended only for men of 
 Science. More than this—many quotations and 
 extracts from the works of other writers on Geology 
 are inserted. Part of them are necessary portions 
 of the descriptions given; the rest, for the sake of 
 comparison between what is observed in Australia 
 and what is known in other regions. Not the least 
 important portion of what a geological student has 
 
 to acquire, is how to make use of what he reads. 
 
“ 
 
 Vill PREFACE. 
 
 In a country where so much is to be observed, it 
 may prove useful to see how the Author has done 
 so. This is another object of the quotations; but 
 none have been inserted, unless as illustrating 
 theories which might seem startling without some 
 such support. , 
 
 For the rest, the Author is sensible that there 
 are many imperfections in the book, in palliation 
 of which readers will kindly consider the circum- 
 stances under which it was written. All the diffi- 
 culties to be surmounted need not be mentioned. 
 Yet it may be stated, that while the missionary 
 duties of a large district (22,000 square miles) left 
 but little spare time, it was compiled without the 
 assistance of any museum or library to which re- 
 ference could be had, or the aid of any scientific 
 men nearer than England whose advice would have 
 been most useful. There may, accordingly, be 
 many errors, and there would have been more but 
 for the kindness of several gentlemen in connection 
 with the Geological Society at home. 
 
 One word, in conclusion, with regard to the En- 
 gravings. ‘The views are from photographs. The 
 fossils, &c., are from drawings by Mr. Alexander 
 
 Burkitt, of Williamstown Observatory, Melbourne 
 
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 ae pe ' 7 ; t PREFACE. : | 3 1X : ; 
 
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 late of the Isle of Wight). This opportunity is 
 
 7 
 
 en of returning very grateful thanks to that 
 tleman for his exertions in perfecting the illus- 
 ation of the Work. ; 
 
 — 
 
 Pernoxa, Sour AvsrRALta: ‘ 
 
 November 15, 1861. 
 
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CONTENTS. 
 
 pentane Wate 
 _ Preract é ; t ens & : . Page vii. 
 CHAPTER I. 
 y INTRODUCTION . ; : : 1 
 ‘ CHAPTER II. 
 GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 ee eititihary Observations — Nature of New Country known from 
 the Rocks—Geological Queries to be answered by Australia — 
 \ General Description of Australia—— Former Separation of the 
 «Continent — South Australian Ranges —The Coast of Australia 
 
 _ — Australian Cordillera — South Australian Chain — Age of 
 Rocks in Australia — Mineral Riches— Great Barrier Reef — 
 
 . i General View of Australian Geology. ; a el 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE SOILS. 
 
 “Dependence of Scenery on Geology — Description of the Dis- 
 | their Varieties — Plains — Heath and Scrub—Flora of the Dis- 
 trict — Sand and its Origin— Varieties of Soils— Honeysuckle 
 entry — Limestone Biscuits — Broken Country — Magnesian 
 _ Fermentation — Distribution of Trees — Causes favourable to 
 
 — 
 
 trict — Swamps, their Localities and Peculiarities— Ridges and — 
 
xu CONTENTS. 
 
 their Growth — Living Inhabitants of the Swamps — Lagoons 
 at’ Guichen Bay — Deposits of Bones on Banks of Swamps — 
 In Crevices— Conclusion. . . Page 25 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE ROCKS. 
 
 Strata of the Plains— Their Uniformity — Character of the 
 ~ Rocks — Horizontality of the Beds — Distribution of Fossils — 
 Sand Pipes — Native Wells — Flint Layers — Their Origin— 
 Separation of Silica — Iron Pyrites and Rock Salt— Salt 
 Pans — Fossil Bryozoa — Aggregation of Fossils —-Age of 
 the Beds — Corals — How deposited — Prevailing Bryozoa — 
 Comparison of these Beds with the Remains of Coral Reefs 
 — Difficulty as to the Nature of Coral—-Extent of these 
 Beds . , ae : : 68 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 AN UNFINISHED CONTINENT. 
 
 Extent of the Formation— Murray Cliffs— Sturt’s List of 
 Fossils — Description of the Cliffs— Extent of the Formation 
 in a Westerly Direction — Sturt’s Account of the Formation 
 to the North — Flinders’ Description of the South — Other 
 Observations — Boundaries to the Eastward —Tasmania —Ori- 
 gin of the Formation— Showing Subsidence of a large Area— 
 Darwin’s Theory — Application of this to the Mount Gambier 
 Beds— Objections answered — Why no Remains of Atolls are 
 found — Probably some Remains at Swede’s Flat — Probable 
 Temperature of the Sea— Geological Period — Analogies in the 
 present State of the Earth’s Crust with former Geological 
 Epochs — Analogy of Australia to the Chalk — Retarded State 
 of its Zoology — Bad Adaptability as a Residence for Man — 
 Concluding Remarks . ; . : 103 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 HOW THE REEF ENDED. 
 
 Cessation of Coralline Formation — Description of Upper Crag 
 — Extent of it — Derived from an Ocean Current — Guichen 
 
’ 
 
 CONTENTS. x1 
 
 Bay Beds —— Absence of Fossils in them — Cape Grant Beds 
 — Strata there described -——Trap Rock and Amygdala — 
 Similarity of Upper Beds to Upper Crag in England— 
 Singular Formation near the Trap— Localities where the 
 Upper Crag is found — Broken Fauna — Reefs left of Crag — 
 Concretions not owing to Casts of Trees — Decomposition of 
 the Rock — Blow-holes— Denudation and Upheaval — What 
 becomes of Detritus — History of the Deposit — Denudation 
 — Coralline Crag of Suffolk — Water-level — Deep-sea 
 Soundings. Ail gee. . . Page 148 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE REEF’S SUBSEQUENT HISTORY. 
 
 Preliminary Observations — Aspect of the Australian Coast — 
 
 Sand Formation of Cornwall — Origin of Australian Sand — 
 Its Composition—— Upper Limestone and Shell Deposits — 
 Localities in which the latter occur—Stone Hut Range — 
 Observations on the Fauna of the Deposit — Lakes on the 
 Coast — The Coorong — Lake Hawdon— Lake Eliza — Lake 
 St. Clair — Lake George—Lake Bonney —German Flat — 
 Mouth of the Murray — Upheaval of the Australian Coast — 
 This proved from the Coast Line—From South Australian 
 Rivers, and especially the Reedy Creek — Upheaval still going 
 on — Periods of Rest —Six Chains of Hills — Terraces formed 
 from old Sea-beaches — Sand Dunes not hardening into Stone 
 —Similar Formations in Suffolk — Lake Superior and Bahia 
 Blanca — Why generally associated with Sandstone . 181 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 EXTINCT VOLCANOES. 
 
 Preliminary Remarks — Absence of Volcanoes from Australia 
 
 — Probability of less Disturbance in Southern Hemisphere 
 —Mount Gambier—By whom described —'The Lakes— 
 Their Peculiarities — The Valley Lake — The Punch-bowl — 
 The Middle Lake — The Blue Lake — Mode of the various 
 Eruptions — Volcano one of Subsidence, not Upheaval — 
 Minerals found in the Craters— Period of the Eruption — Pro- 
 bability of its Extinction— Recapitulation . . 224 
 
X1V CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 VOLCANOES — CONTINUED. 
 
 Mount Shanck —Dissimilarity of Volcanoes — Importance of 
 describing them — Description of the Country — Well-shaped 
 Holes — Valley — Australian Flora — Small Lake — Vol- 
 canic Bombs —~ The Great Cone— Remains of former 
 Crater — How more recent Cone was formed — Its Appear- 
 ance and Similarity to: Vesuvius and Etna— Indentation in 
 the Side—Evidence of former Peak— Lava Stream — 
 Curious Mode in which it is heaped— Derived from older _ 
 Crater — Cause of heaping up of Scorize — Parallel Instances 
 — Connection of Mounts Gambier and Shanck — Conclu- 
 
 sion. . ey 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 THE SMALLER VOLCANOES. 
 
 Southern End of the District only volcanic — Lake Leake — Lake 
 Edward — Craters of Subsidence —Leake’s Bluff — Mount 
 Muirhead — Mount Burr — Mount M‘Intyre and Mount Ed- 
 ward — Line of Disturbance connected probably with Victorian 
 Craters — Period of their Duration and the Time which has 
 elapsed since their Extinction— Submarine Craters — Julia 
 Percy Island — Controversy on Craters of Elevation and Sub- 
 sidence — Both applicable here — Trap not always connected 
 with Gold ; : : . 282 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 CAVES. 
 
 Denudation and its Effects — Caves in general — Bones in Caves 
 —Caves made by Fissures— How Bones came into them 
 — Parallel Instance in South Australia —Course of Rivers 
 in Caves— Caves in the Morea—The Katavothra — The 
 Swede’s Flat — Osseous Deposits How Bones become pre- 
 served in Rivers— Caves which have been Dens of Animals 
 — Kirkdale Cave — Beach Caves — Paviland Cave — Austra- 
 lian Caves with the Remains of Aborigines — Egress Caves — 
 The Guacharo Caves — Other Caves — Conclusion _ es 
 
CONTENTS. = XV 
 
 CHAPTER XIL. 
 
 CAVES. 
 
 ~ 
 
 “Caves in general Caves at Mosquito Plains — First Cave — 
 Second Cave— Third Cave— Dried Corpse of a Native — 
 ~ Robertson’ s Parlour — Connection between it and deeper 
 Caves — Coralline Limestone — Bones— Bones of Rodents 
 -— Other Bones— Manner in which the Caves were formed — 
 Former Lake now drained by a Creek — Evidence of Floods 
 _ —No Evidence of the Deluge— Conclusion . Page 821 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 . CAVES. 
 
 - Caves— Mount Burr Caves — Vansittart’s Cave — Mitchell’s 
 Cave —The Drop-Drop— Bones of a large Kangaroo — 
 -__ Elllis’s Cave — Underground Drainage — Caves at Limestone 
 —_- Ridge — Other Caves— Conclusion. . 853 
 yt 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 ‘; _ 
 
 ‘i Concluding Remarks . : ; ; : : me aO 7. 
 
 eS L898 
 
 | Appennrx IL. 12 gS SE A ie cae ek a 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Caves, Mosquito Plains. Third Chamber 
 Map of South Australia 
 Fossils Bryozoa 
 Pecten 
 Retepora . : 
 Terebratula compta 
 Cellepora gambierensis 
 Spatangus Forbesii 
 Pecten coarctatus (?) 
 Cidaris 
 Clypeaster 
 Cast of Trochus 
 Echinolampus 
 Cast of Conus 
 oe Mitra 
 im 6Pyrula , : 
 maeeeturbo(?) . ; 
 Teeth of Shark (Oxyrrhinus Woodsii) 
 Spine of Cidaris be : 
 Nautilus ziczac 
 Spatangus Forbesii 
 Cast of Turritella terebralis 
 Murex asper 
 Cellepora gambierensis ‘ 
 Branching Axis of Cellepora gambierensis 
 Fascicularia (?), South Australian Coast 
 Astrea, Ditto 
 Shell, Ditto 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 to face-page 
 
 ”? 
 
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 1 
 73 
 14 
 
XVlli LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Mount Gambier, Blue Lake Crater : to face page 228 
 ¥ 45 Middle and Valley Lake Craters _,, Pee 10) 
 Pecten coarctatus . , : : : . 255 
 Caves, Mosquito Plains. Second Chamber to face page 325 
 Skull of Rodent, from Caves . ; : . 9896 
 Upper Jaw ; ; ‘ > aap 
 Lower Jaw ee : ; : = ae 
 Teeth of Upper Jaw, enlarged “4 
 », Lower Jaw, enlarged . : i ee 
 
 Kangaroo Bones . . , ‘ . 3861 
 
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 1. Hills of porphyry. 
 2-2. Rocks composed of shelly 
 sand, 
 
 iN 
 
 3. Shells of existing species are 
 found in the strata of the 
 plainsrunning parallel with 
 the coast. 
 
 . Natural fountain. 
 . Trap-dyke. 
 . Lake Leake (2 craters). 
 7. Caves. 
 . Underground river. GUICHEN 
 . Mount Shanck a 
 
 . Mount Gambier (with its two 
 craters). 
 
 . Large caves containing bones, 
 &e. 
 
 . Mounts Burr,M‘Intyre, Leake, 
 and Muirhead. 
 
 . Swede’s Flat. 
 
 \ i All \ 
 
 GLENELG R. 
 
GHOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS 
 
 IN 
 
 SOUTH AUSTRALIA 
 
 —-—00a300-— 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ANY years ago (1683), Dr. Lister proposed to 
 
 the Royal Society that a map of the soils of 
 England should be prepared; and he urged, as a 
 reason for it, that if it were noted how far these 
 extended, and the limits of each soil appeared on a 
 map, something more might be comprehended than 
 he could possibly foresee, which would make the 
 labour well worth the pains. ‘ For I am of opinion,’ 
 said he, ‘such upper soil, if natural, infallibly pro- 
 duces such under-minerals, and, for the most part, 
 in order; but this I leave to the industry of fu- 
 ture times.’ Geology was then in its infancy, Its 
 only claim to the position of a science was the pos- 
 session of many theories, some highly improbable, 
 and none very consistent with the other. How- 
 ever, what was thought the guess of Dr. Lister was 
 
 B 
 
2 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 acted upon, and found to be a prophecy. A map 
 was made, and particular soils were found to pro- 
 duce certain minerals, or, more correctly, certain 
 minerals were always found associated with certain 
 rocks, whose decomposition gave rise to particular 
 sols. This was the first effort of geology to 
 become practical, and already, in the distance, 
 was seen utility. ‘The industry of later times’ 
 extended these observations, and, after investiga- 
 tions in many places in the world which took time 
 to accomplish, a general classification of rocks and 
 minerals was made. Geology became thus pos- 
 sessed of certain principles, and, to make these 
 of paramount utility, all that was wanted was an 
 extensive field on which they could be applied. 
 
 A new country, whose mineral riches were un- 
 known, was required, and this was found in Aus- 
 tralia. Its rocks were examined, and found to 
 correspond with similar rocks in the old country; 
 there was an easy conclusion to be drawn, namely, 
 that they contained similar minerals. <A search 
 was made, and was repaid by an inexhaustible 
 supply of coal, iron*, lead, copper, silver, and gold. 
 
 From this statement, it will appear very evident 
 that geology is largely indebted to Australia. Not 
 only did it give a lasting stability to principles 
 
 * The iron mines of South Australia will probably yet be found as 
 rich as any in the world. Ores are found cropping out on the surface, 
 within a short distance of Adelaide, from which 62 per cent. was 
 yielded upon analysis. A ship could be loaded at the surface from 
 
 where the specimen was taken. Beautiful octahedral crystals of 
 protoxide are very common, 
 
INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 which were found as applicable on one side of the 
 world as they were on the other, but perhaps more 
 than any other country it has proved to the world 
 that the science of geology can take the first rank 
 as one which helps to minister to the temporal 
 wants of man, and develop the resources of a 
 nation. 
 
 On the other hand, however, geology has more 
 than repaid the assistance it has received. Without 
 going very deeply into the theory of colonization, 
 one can easily perceive that, had Australia been 
 only dependent on its pastoral or agricultural 
 resources, it would have taken a long time, a very 
 long time, to become a place of importance. Its 
 situation is too far from Europe to have rendered 
 its progress, under these circumstances, anything 
 but slow and precarious. But geology has lent its 
 hand, and given quite a different prospect. Aus- 
 tralia promises now to be one of the most important 
 empires that the sun will shine upon in its twenty- 
 four hours’ course round the world. 
 
 This is not a trifling thing for one science to say 
 of itself, and its truth is very easily made evident. 
 Look, for instance, at what Melbourne was in 1850: 
 a poor, miserable, straggling town, with not one 
 public building that would have done honour to 
 a county town in England. And what have ten 
 years done? Why, Melbourne is the wonder of 
 the southern hemisphere. Its wharves, its Govern- 
 ment buildings, its banks, its churches, and its 
 parks, are evidences of prosperity at which even 
 
 B 2 
 
4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the fast-going Americans stop and stare with 
 amazement. And all this is due to geology. 
 ‘Many will say, however, ‘Don’t say geology, say 
 gold; for gold would have been eventually found 
 without the assistance of science at all, and then 
 this prosperity would have ensued just in the same 
 manner.’ This is true; but how long might it have 
 been delayed? It was geology, and geology only, 
 that led to its discovery at the particular time at 
 which it was found. Sir Roderick Murchison, after 
 giving some attention to the rocks of Australia, 
 predicted, long before the discovery was made, that 
 Australia would be found to be auriferous. The 
 Rev. W. B. Clarke, of New South Wales, made the 
 same observations, and it was by being urged to 
 the matter by geologists that the Government took 
 the matter in hand, and offered the reward which 
 led to its discovery. 
 
 As an instance of how long the discovery would 
 have been delayed but for science, it may be men- 
 tioned that many cases are on record of gold having 
 been found in Victoria before it was recognised as 
 such, and it was invariably thrown aside as either 
 copper or iron pyrites. The author was once look- 
 ing over a collection of mineral specimens collected 
 by an old shepherd, who had a fancy for these 
 things. Among them a piece of auriferous quartz 
 was discovered, and, on asking the proprietor what 
 he considered it to be, he said it was some ‘ copper 
 stone’ he had picked up in Victoria while shep- 
 herding, many years before. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 But it is not alone in Melbourne that geology 
 _ has conferred immense benefits. Look at Ballarat, 
 at Sandhurst, and at the numerous other cities, I 
 may call them, where, ten years ago, nothing was 
 to be seen but a few sheep feeding. Again, in New 
 South Wales, see what has been done for that 
 colony by the discovery of gold fields. Not so 
 much, perhaps, as for Victoria, but the mines are 
 not so extensive there; it has, however, coal to 
 make up for it, and the extensive trade of the Aus- 
 tralian Newcastle is another proof of the temporal 
 benefits which geology has in its power to confer. 
 In South Australia there is ample proof of the same. 
 About 100 miles to the north of Adelaide there is 
 a thriving populous town, named Kooringa. This 
 is the locality of the famous Burra Burra mine. 
 Nothing could be more interesting than to remark 
 the European aspect which the township, the ma- 
 chinery, and the population of this place present, 
 and then to walk about two miles away, where a 
 dreary solitary landscape, such as can only be seen 
 in the Australian Bush, forms a singular contrast 
 with the busy active place one has just left. What 
 the environs are, the town itself was twenty years 
 ago; and the change is due to geology. ‘The 
 copper ore was cropping out of the ground, and 
 required no science for its discovery, but it may be 
 doubted whether the mine would have been worth 
 much but for working, based on geological princi- 
 ples, and at any rate much valuable ore would have 
 been lost for want of a mineralogical knowledge 
 
6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of its value. Darwin mentions an incident in his 
 
 travels which illustrates this. In some of the 
 Chilian copper mines the copper pyrites were al- 
 ways thrown away, until it was pointed out by 
 some English miners that the ore was very valuable. 
 Now, though carbonates, not sulphurets, are the 
 predominant ores at Kooringa, much would doubt- 
 less have been lost had not accurate scientific 
 knowledge directed the operations. 
 
 Again, fifty miles to the south of the Burra Burra 
 there is another thriving little township, where, 
 much more recently, nothing of the kind was to be 
 seen: this is the Kapunda mine, not, perhaps, equal 
 to the one just described, but an important addi- 
 tion to the mineral wealth of South Australia. It 
 has not been, as yet, certainly ascertained that the 
 same colony does not possess coal or gold; but here 
 again geology has shown its usefulness in direct- 
 ing a systematic search, and preventing useless 
 trials where there was no chance of success. 
 
 In Tasmania, coal, and perhaps gold, give evi- 
 dence of the same important position taken by one 
 science in developing colonial resources. Many 
 other instances might here be advanced; but 
 what has been said is hardly consistent with the 
 
 brevity intended in this introductory chapter, and, ~ 
 
 at any rate, it amply illustrates what has been 
 advanced to establish the utility of geology. All 
 hitherto alleged, though not immediately con- 
 nected with the object of this book, will serve two 
 important purposes. It will, in the first place, 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 show that the science has now become so impor- 
 tant to mankind, in bettering their social position, 
 that all which tends to increase our knowledge 
 in that particular branch of enquiry must be of 
 great service. As such, it will be an apology for 
 what follows, lest any should think its details not 
 worth recording, or not producing sufficiently great 
 results from the facts of which it treats. Secondly, 
 it will give an idea of how much has been already - 
 done towards a correct knowledge of Australian 
 geology. But on this head a little more must be 
 said. 
 
 Of all the Australian colonies, the geology of 
 Victoria is best known, that of New South Wales 
 perhaps the next, and that of Tasmania next. In 
 Victoria, the geological survey spoken of in the 
 next chapter has been undertaken by the Govern- 
 ment, and regular maps are in course of publica- 
 tion. In addition to this, the Royal Society of 
 Victoria has among its members men of the highest 
 scientific attainments, who are everywhere record- 
 ing observations of the utmost value to the science, 
 and, under these combined efforts, it may safely be 
 affirmed that there are no portions of the colony 
 whose rocks are entirely unknown. 
 
 In Tasmania, the colony has been examined by 
 many private individuals and by the Philosophical 
 Society of the colony. There is no Government 
 survey, as far as I am aware; but the continued 
 rewards offered by Government for the discovery 
 of gold have led to an enterprising search, through 
 
8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 which a good deal of knowledge has been obtained. 
 Much still remains to be done. | 
 
 In New South Wales, various scientific gentlemen 
 have lent their aid to the examination of the rocks, 
 and very little can be desired as to those in the 
 immediate neighbourhood of Sydney. In coal 
 districts, also, a very minute examination of the 
 carboniferous and old red sandstone rocks has 
 been made, and also of the rocks in the vicinity of 
 the gold diggings. The colony, however, is so ex- 
 tensive that it may be many years before complete 
 and reliable geological knowledge can be obtained. 
 
 In South Australia, nothing has been done. 
 Though colonised as long as Port Phillip, the 
 world, and even the residents of the colony, are 
 quite ignorant of its geology. Certainly, the ter- 
 ritory 1s very large, and a great deal of it perfectly 
 unknown; but still the Government have never yet 
 considered themselves justified in affording means 
 for a scientific examination; and, unfortunately, 
 private individuals with sufficient knowledge have 
 never given any attention to the subject. Any 
 searches for coal or gold that have been made have 
 been more fruitful in negative results than in any 
 positive information. 
 
 In 1856 a search for gold, under the aircon of 
 Mr. B. H. Babbage, resulted in nothing more than 
 a further exploration of the colony. Many very 
 useful and important observations were, however, 
 made on the nature of the rocks in the districts 
 passed through, and no doubt that gentleman’s 
 
 a 
 
INTRODUCTION. 9 
 
 scientific accuracy in recording facts has proved of 
 great service in giving data to carry out future 
 operations. 
 
 In 1859, Mr. Selwyn, the Government geologist 
 of Victoria, was invited by the South Australian 
 Government to visit and report upon the rocks 
 of the latter colony, with a view to its gold or 
 coal-producing properties. Ina very hurried visit, 
 Mr. Selwyn was able to furnish little more than a 
 mere catalogue of the rocks seen by him; but 
 even that was of service, and certainly it was more 
 than could have been anticipated from the short 
 time allowed for the visit to so large a territory. 
 
 And, though so little has been done, there is 
 no country more interesting in its formations, or 
 more varied in its mineralogical productions, than 
 South Australia: lofty mountains, extensive plains, 
 sandy deserts, and inland seas, are all included in 
 its far-stretching boundaries; with a climate like 
 that of the south of Spain, it possesses the scenery 
 of the Highlands in some places, while in others 
 deserts like those of Arabia, and vying with them 
 for bleakness, aridity, and burning heat. There 
 are chains of salt lakes which render unprofitable 
 a larger area than England; there are marshes and 
 salt swamps more dank, unwholesome, and exten- 
 sive, than any in the United States ; there are 
 rocky precipices, and chasms, and waterfalls to 
 rival almost the Alps; there are extinct volcanoes 
 of large dimensions, almost as numerous as those 
 of Auvergne ; and, finally, there are caves which 
 
10 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 exceed in magnitude the Guacharo caves of Hum- 
 boldt, or in stalactites the Antiparos of the Aigean 
 Sea. 
 
 Yet, as observed above, all these things are little 
 known, even as existing facts, much less as illus- 
 trating scientific conclusions. To examine them 
 all and describe them all, so as to satisfy the re- 
 quirements of geology, would demand the labour, 
 not of one alone, but the combined energies of 
 very many learned and experienced men. This, of 
 course, will not be obtained just now; in the mean- 
 
 time, any observations will be of service. With 
 
 this view, these unconnected and casual observa- 
 tions are offered. Situated, as a missionary priest, 
 in the large colony of Australia, there have been 
 opportunities afforded for observation such as few 
 could command; and thus the author has been 
 enabled to see a very large portion of the colony, 
 and to afford a partial observation to many facts 
 he met with. What has been done has been re- 
 corded in this book; it will owe its chief interest, 
 not so much from the conclusion arrived at, as 
 from the nature of the phenomena described. 
 There is, however, one remark to be made before 
 concluding this introductory chapter. A common 
 prejudice exists now-a-days in favour of Science, 
 which gives an unreal value to the smallest gains 
 
 in its behalf. I am far from attaching an undue 
 
 weight to scientific theories as such, and therefore 
 still less to any results of my own. Though we 
 look with the greatest pride on those things 
 
 = 
 
INTRODUCTION. ll 
 
 which discovery has achieved — on our telegraphs, 
 our steam-engines, and other numerous contrivances 
 — still their usefulness is limited and confined, and, 
 perhaps, in reality, conferring a smaller amount 
 of benefit than is claimed for them. If, then, we 
 question the amount of temporal usefulness which 
 has been awarded to geology, it has, perhaps, as 
 much as any other science, but: still of a limited 
 and temporal kind. While these opinions are held, 
 it will be seen that no unreasonable claims are 
 made on behalf of what I have to relate. That 
 they are interesting as facts I have little doubt, and 
 because they served, in my case, as a useful employ- 
 
 ment of time which could not be otherwise occu- 
 | pied, they have been collected. When out in the 
 far Bush, in the prosecution of my duties, it has 
 been a most delightful employment, when books 
 were unattainable, to study the great unpublished 
 work of Nature, and it is hoped that the reader 
 will think that the time has not been wasted. 
 
12 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS.—NATURE OF NEW COUNTRY KNOWN 
 FROM THE ROCKS.—GEOLOGICAL QUERIES TO BE ANSWERED 
 BY AUSTRALIA.—GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF AUSTRALIA, — 
 FORMER SEPARATION OF THE CONTINENT. —SOUTH AUSTRALIAN 
 RANGE.— THE COAST OF AUSTRALIA. — AUSTRALIAN COR- 
 DILLERA.—SOUTH AUSTRALIAN CHAIN.—AGE OF ROCKS IN 
 AUSTRALIA, AND MINERAL RICHES.——GREAT BARRIER REEF.— 
 GENERAL VIEW OF AUSTRALIAN GEOLOGY. 
 
 VERY country has its history, not alone the 
 history of what its inhabitants said and did, nor 
 how its people lived, conspired, quarrelled, fought, 
 and died, but a history which stretches farther back, 
 and is buried in more remote antiquity. If it had 
 not been so, Australia might indeed be counted the 
 youngest as well as the least interesting of conti- 
 nents. She has had no people that could describe 
 her vicissitudes, and there are no monuments left 
 to chronicle her changes; but yet her history is 
 written in an imperishable record. Of old, when 
 the first explorers came upon the coast of a newly- 
 discovered territory, the rocks, the trees, the soil, 
 and the verdure, only spoke to them,of one thing, 
 namely, of fertility, or richness, or special adapta- 
 tion to the wants of man. But now the very coast- 
 line tells much more. Not onlyis the fertility or bar- 
 
GEOLOGY TOLD FROM COAST SCENERY. 13 
 
 renness of the place itself told by the rocks, but the 
 explorer is able to guess how far these appearances 
 extend, and whether the country is likely to be fitted 
 _ for human requirements in the present state of civi- 
 lisation. Thus, for instance, if he sees granite rocks 
 and slates on his approach, he knows that there 
 must be mountainous ridges at no great distance — 
 that there will be plenty of fresh water and deep soil 
 near at hand; he knows also that mineral riches 
 will be absent, and that every facility will be obtain- 
 able for constructing good and substantial build- 
 ings. But farther than this is the mind of the 
 geologist carried back by the view of the granite. 
 He pictures to himself a time when the hard stone 
 before him was a melted fiery mass; when from the 
 chemical laboratory of Nature new minerals were 
 elaborated, precious stones formed, and metallife- 
 rous veins insinuated into cracks and fissures, to 
 serve man’s purposes. 
 
 So, again, if the coast be composed of chalk 
 cliffs, geological explorers know that the interior 
 will be gently undulating plains, but thinly tim- 
 bered, that surface water will not be plentiful, 
 that the soil will be best suited for pastoral pur- 
 poses ; that mineral riches will be absent; and for 
 its history, figure to himself a white ring of breakers 
 beating upon a circle of white sand, crowded with 
 palm trees—a green saltwater lake in the middle of 
 the island, contrasting strongly with the dark blue 
 water outside —a variegated flower-show of coral 
 animals —in fine, a marvel of fragility and strength 
 
14 ATOLLS AND THE CHALK. 
 
 —of beauty and variety—a coral island or atoll, 
 from which the chalk beds are all supposed to have 
 been derived. In short, every stone will tell more 
 than the mere fact of its presence. Every rock 
 has its chronology, which can be deciphered now 
 with ease. 
 
 And so we naturally ask, What has been the 
 history of this vast continent of Australia, which 
 has done so much latterly for Europe? What is 
 the manner by which this new home came among 
 the other countries of the world? Does it form 
 one link in the chain of evidence found elsewhere? 
 Does it speak of the same convulsions, changes, vi- 
 cissitudes, that have attended the growth of other 
 portions of the earth’s surface? Does it, like them, 
 speak of the dawn of creation, where simple organ- 
 isation and embryonic forms told, in simple though 
 unmistakable language, that their type and perfec- 
 tion— Man—was yet tocome? All these questions 
 have to be answered by the geology of Australia, 
 and this forms the primeval history of the conti- 
 nent. 
 
 I am not for a moment claiming for this unpre- 
 tending book the dignity of being able to answer 
 finally all, or perhaps any, of these questions; but, 
 nevertheless, it is meant as a contribution to the — 
 history, small in its way, but showing the continent 
 to be no exception to the earth’s previous revela- 
 tions. Just as memoirs and histories of particular 
 epochs serve to elucidate the great record of the 
 past, so this little book will be a help towards the 
 
AUSTRALIAN COAST. 15 
 
 great results that are yet to be obtained. It is in- 
 tended, therefore, in this chapter, to give a short 
 sketch of the present knowledge of the geology of 
 the Australian continent, because it will give the 
 reader a notion of the relation of different por- 
 tions, and the exact position of the district to be 
 described. 
 
 I need hardly go out of my way to describe the 
 precise locality, dimensions, and shape of the Aus- 
 tralian continent; these are now pretty generally 
 known. I would, however, call attention to the 
 fact, that the outline of the continent is generally 
 of an even unbroken outline, except in two places» 
 the one north, and the other south; in fact, nearly 
 opposite one another. The northern indentation is 
 the Gulf of Carpentaria, including the straggling 
 coast line of Arnhem’s Land; with Clarence Strait, 
 Van Diemen’s Gulf, and Melville and Bathurst 
 Tslands. On the south, the indentation of the land 
 is included in Spencer’s Gulf, Gulf St. Vincent, 
 Yorke’s Peninsula, Cape Jervis, and Kangaroo 
 Island. If we now follow the coast line from Cape 
 Jervis in a southerly and then in an easterly 
 one, at the River Glenelg we find there is no 
 indentation of any size, or, at least, anything to 
 compare with those just mentioned. This continues 
 all around until we reach the Gulf of Carpentaria 
 on the other side. Now, it would appear that there 
 was formerly a separation of the continent into two 
 halves during one of the recent tertiary periods. ‘This 
 separation was at or about a straight line between 
 
16 FORMER SEPARATION OF THE CONTINENT. 
 
 the Gulf of Carpentaria and the deep gulf just 
 spoken of on the opposite or southerly side. It is 
 hardly the place now to enter into the reasons which 
 incline me to this opmion, more especially as it is 
 only proposed to touch generally on the geology 
 of the continent. There can, however, be briefly 
 stated here a few of the facts:—At Cape Jervis 
 a mountain range commences, which runs nearly 
 north and south, and this is bounded on its eastern 
 and western sides by a recent tertiary deposit. 
 These beds will occupy a very prominent position 
 in this volume, and so they need not be dwelt upon 
 shere any more than to say that they thin out to 
 the eastward, very near the boundary between the 
 two colonies, and are immediately succeeded by 
 extinct volcanoes, bays, and altered primary rocks, - 
 which do not appear to have been covered by any 
 tertiary sea. 
 
 To the westward of the same range the beds have 
 been traced through the greater portion of the Great 
 Australian Bight, until they are terminated by the 
 primary rocks of Western Australia, which do not 
 appear to have ever been covered by a tertiary sea. 
 Thus we have the eastern and western sides of 
 the continent occupied by primary rocks, and the 
 centre by tertiary beds enclosing an abundance of 
 recent shells. This is pretty strong presumptive 
 evidence of their previous separation. Again, it 
 will be mentioned, in the course of this work, that 
 Spencer’s Gulf bears most unmistakable signs of 
 having formerly been much larger, or rather, to 
 
THE AUSTRALIAN DESERT. 17 
 
 have been better filled by the ocean than it is at 
 present. To the north of Spencer’s Gulf there is an 
 uninterrupted tract of waste marshy lowlands, con- 
 tinuing as far due north as the explorer has hitherto 
 ventured. This has been found, wherever examined, 
 to consist (with some small exceptions) of lime- 
 stone, with recent marine shells and salt water. 
 Many parts of this desert are sandy, while other 
 parts are immense plains of shingles without any 
 shells, probably portions of the ocean bed, which 
 were too deep for the support of any animal life. 
 Geographers are not well acquainted with the exact 
 nature of the rocks round the Gulf of Carpentaria; 
 but it is not unlikely that they are tertiary. The 
 high land of Cape Yorke, on the eastern side, is 
 known to be primary, as also the highest lands in 
 Arnhem’s Land; * and this would certainly seem to 
 correspond with the opening for the tertiary beds 
 at the southern gulfs. It is not, therefore, hazard- 
 ing too much to say, that a sea has at no very 
 distant period rolled between the eastern and 
 western halves of the continent. It may be men- 
 tioned, that Yorke’s Peninsula, which divides the 
 southern gulfs, Spencer’s and St. Vincent’s, is com- 
 poscd partly of tertiary rock, and, therefore, shows 
 its origin to have been coeval with the continent 
 itself. 
 
 * That is to say, a ferruginous sandstone, of which the whole north 
 coast is composed, and which is very extensively distributed over the 
 continent. Leichardt found init coal and plant impressions, Under- 
 neath it, occasionally, was a bed in which fossils very like Devonian 
 types were found. 
 
 C 
 
18 AUSTRALIAN CORDILLERA. 
 
 Cape Jervis is the commencement of the moun- 
 tain range upon which Adelaide is built; and this 
 is the easterly boundary of Gulf St.Vincent. Pro- 
 ceeding eastward from thence, or rather south-east, 
 the mouth of the river Murray is passed; thence, 
 unto Portland Bay, the coast is low and sandy, or 
 containing fossiliferous and trap rock, all of them, 
 however, belonging to the tertiary period. From 
 Portland Bay, still keeping along towards the east, — 
 right on to Port Jackson, there is an alternation 
 of sandy beach, tertiary trap, and Silurian rocks. 
 The tertiary becomes more rare, once the boundary 
 between South Australia and Victoria is passed. 
 From Port Jackson round to Cape Yorke, in the 
 Gulf of Carpentaria, the basis of the coast is pri- 
 mary.* The line of primary rocks, therefore, drawn 
 from Cape Yorke to Port Phillip, is given as con- 
 taining one vast series of rocks connected together, 
 though, perhaps, remotely ; and this, it will be seen, 
 includes, almost in a semicircle, the whole eastern 
 side of Australia. It is thus marked in Murchison’s 
 Map of Silurian Rocks, as distributed throughout 
 the world. (See the last edition of his ‘ Siluria.’) 
 
 By Sir R. Murchison it is there given as the Aus- 
 tralian cordillera. If it is, or has been soa, it has 
 formed a remarkable exception to other cordilleras 
 
 * The word ‘basis’ is here used purposely, because there are occa- 
 sional interruptions ; but, from the constant reappearance of primary 
 series, there can be no doubt that this is the general rock of the terri- 
 tory. The term ‘primary’ is not made use of in the sense in which 
 that word was formerly accepted; those rocks are meant which are 
 generally called paleeozoic, and called generally primary or Silurian, 
 
 to distinguish them from secondary, whether these be fossiliferous, 
 metamorphic, or igenous. 
 
AUSTRALIAN CORDILLERA. 19 
 
 throughout the world. Nearly all the cordilleras 
 have the most gradual slopes from east to west, and 
 their drainage, consequently, flows in an easterly 
 direction; but in the case of Australia the slope is 
 to the eastward, and the drainage, consequently, in 
 an opposite course. It will be seen that the cor- 
 dillera takes a westerly sweep, near the colony of 
 Victoria, and terminates in the Australian Alps, 
 some of which are over 6000 feet high,* and 
 covered with snow for a large portion of the year. 
 It is from the drainage of these mountains that the 
 principal Australian rivers are derived, but the land 
 through which they run is generally of a poor 
 description, at any distance from the banks. If 
 the continent had been formerly separated where 
 it is here supposed it has been, the alluvial flats 
 which are found along the beds of these rivers, 
 and which, for so long a time, acted as an impedi- 
 ment to their exploration, may have been suc- 
 cessive deltas of rivers, which are even now only 
 very little raised above the level of the sea. In the 
 case supposed, the Adelaide chain, which may al- 
 most be considered a second cordillera, was a chain 
 of islands, and their further upheaval caused the 
 rivers to take a southerly course to follow the sea, 
 
 *¢The height of these mountains is only 2400 to 4700 feet above 
 the sea level, and even Mount Kosciusko, the loftiest of the Austra- 
 lian Alps, is not more than 6900, yet its position is so favourable 
 that the view from its grassy tops sweeps over an area of 7000 square 
 miles. The rugged and savage character of these mountains far 
 exceeds what might be expected from their height. By far the greater 
 part of the chain, though wooded along, is crowded by naked needles, 
 serrated peaks, and flat crests of granite or porphyry, mingled with 
 patches of snow.’—Somerville’s Physical Geography. 
 
20 SOUTH AUSTRALIAN CHAIN, 
 
 which flowed between them and the mountains 
 upon which Adelaide now stands. 
 
 The dimensions of the chain (which, for con- 
 venience, in this: work will be called the South 
 Australian chain) have not yet been stated. It 
 commences properly at Cape Jervis, and continues, 
 with varied height, until it reaches the bend of © 
 Lake Torrens, only occasionally, in its course, 
 throwing off spurs to the right and left. This 
 range is very detached and broken in many places, 
 and perhaps in few parts higher than near Adelaide, 
 where Mount Lofty rises to the height of 2100 feet 
 above the level of the sea; but it is worthy of re- 
 mark, that it is entirely disconnected with the 
 eastern cordillera, or with the mountain systems of 
 any of the neighbouring colonies. In examining 
 portions of it, I have been led to think that probably 
 they were of much greater height at one time. In- — 
 deed, it seemed to me, as far as a cursory examina- 
 tion could guide me, that there were very distinct 
 marks of snow, and the action of glaciers. This 
 would declare the range to have been once of extra- 
 ordinary elevation, probably the axis of some former 
 continent. But more minute examination must be 
 given to the subject before anything is stated as a 
 fact established. No fossils have been found, except — 
 at one portion of the range, about thirty miles 
 south of Adelaide. I was informed that the fossil 
 was a Pentamenus Oblongus. This would be charac- 
 teristic of the lowest division of the Upper Silurian 
 rocks. ‘The person who found it is since deceased, 
 so that the observation cannot be traced farther 
 
SOUTH AUSTRALIAN CHAIN. 21 
 
 or verified, unless new discoveries are made.* With 
 this exception, if, indeed, it can be considered such, 
 nothing is known of the age of the rocks on this 
 range. They are highly metamorphic, and consist 
 principally of slates, quartzites and schists. Gold has 
 been found in several parts of the range, although 
 never very extensively, but the deficiency is amply 
 made up by the immense quantities of copper, iron, 
 lead, and silver, besides marble and various other 
 valuable building stones. No range of hill was 
 ever richer in beautiful varieties of minerals, and 
 even diamonds and other precious gems have 
 occasionally been discovered. The description of 
 this range has been dwelt upon, because it is more 
 immediately connected with the subject of this 
 work. Only brief allusions will now be made to 
 the geology of other portions of Australia. 
 
 In describing the geology of Adelaide, or South 
 Australia, there is nothing more to say, at present, 
 than that it is included in the geology of the range, 
 the tertiary flats which surround it, and the district 
 of which the description is especially undertaken 
 in these pages. As to- Victoria, its gold diggings 
 have led to an amount of information which it 
 would be difficult to condense, if entered upon at all. 
 
 * Since the above was written, my brother, T. A. Woods, has 
 brought me a fossil which he found at Nuriootpa, north of Adelaide. 
 Iwas long unable even to guess at its nature, it was so different from 
 anything I had previously seen. Since then, Mr. Forbes has published 
 his researches amid the Andes (Geological Society’s Journal), and 
 among the engravings of fossils collected from the Silurian rocks of 
 South America, I immediately recognised the fossil of Nuriootpa. It 
 
 was Cruziana Cucurbita, thus showing the connection of the true 
 Antipodean beds. 
 
22 VICTORIAN ROCKS. 
 
 Towards the close of the Introduction, it has been 
 stated how the survey has been undertaken, and 
 up to this time carried out. It possesses upper 
 and lower Silurian rocks, agreeing in fossils with 
 those of Europe, notwithstanding their wide geo- 
 graphical separation; it also has coal beds, which 
 sir R. Murchison seems to think are Oolitic, and 
 which agree with those of Sydney by the frequent 
 occurrence of the remarkable fern (?) Glossopteris 
 Browniana.* 
 
 To the geology of New South Wales I have 
 also already alluded in the Introduction; that of 
 Northern Australia is little known. 
 
 Western Australia is only very slightly known 
 from recent explorations. It appears that the old 
 red sandstone is very common, and coal is out- 
 cropping on every side; but how far this extends, 
 or whether there are any fossils to show to what 
 precise period the beds are to be referred, is as yet 
 unknown. In fact, our only published source of 
 information comes from a paper published in the 
 Transactions of the Royal Society of Victoria by 
 Dr. Ferd. Miiller, accompanied with maps, in which 
 paper the track of a recent exploring party in that 
 territory is described. 
 
 A description of the Barrier Reef on the noche 
 west side of the Australian continent will con- 
 
 * A great controversy is being now carried on about the age of 
 these beds. Professor McCoy and Mr. Selwyn maintain, from the 
 similarity of the fossils to those found by the Rev. 8. Hislop at Nagur, 
 India, on beds known to be Oolitic, that that must be the age of the 
 beds. The Rev. W. B. Clarke, F.G.S. of Sydney, having found the 
 
 same fossils associated with true carboniferous plants, maintains that 
 the beds are nearly the equivalents of the coal measures, 
 
THE GREAT BARRIER REEF. 23 
 
 elude this chapter and the general summary of 
 Australian geology. This is a remarkable feature, 
 and intimately connected with some theories in the 
 course of this work, and therefore deserves special 
 notice. It is thus described in Darwin’s work on 
 Coral Reefs: — ‘The Australian Barrier Reef ex- 
 tends, with few interruptions, for nearly 1000 miles. 
 Its average distance from land is between twenty 
 and thirty miles, and in some parts from fifty to 
 seventy. The great arm of the sea thus included 
 is from ten to twenty-five fathoms deep, with a 
 sandy bottom, but towards the southern end, where 
 the reef is farther from the shore, the depth gradu- 
 ally increases to forty and, in some parts, to more 
 than sixty fathoms. Capt. Flinders has described 
 the surface of this reef as consisting of a hard 
 white agglomerate of different kinds of coral, 
 with rough projecting points. The outer edge is 
 the highest part. It is traversed by narrow gullies, 
 and at rare intervals is breached by ship channels. 
 The sea close outside is profoundly deep, but in 
 front of the main breaches soundings can be ob- 
 tained. Some low islets have been found on the 
 reefs.’ This reef has attention called to it here, 
 because it is closely connected with what has to 
 be mentioned in subsequent chapters. This also 
 is the only part of the Australian coast where 
 there is indirect evidence of a subsidence of the 
 land, according, at least, to the present theory of 
 coral reefs; otherwise, generally, the whole of 
 Australia is supposed to be slowly rising —a sup- 
 
24 DEPRESSION OF LAND OF INTERIOR. 
 
 position which is more than borne out by observa- 
 tions to be alluded to. 
 
 In concluding this chapter, it only remains to 
 repeat the total geological aspect of Australia. 
 On either side, the land is composed of primary and 
 metamorphic rocks, while the centre is an immense 
 level tract of tertiary. formations. There is no in- 
 terruption to the latter, except an isolated moun- 
 tain range, which forms the colony of South Aus- 
 tralia. It has long been supposed that the central 
 parts of the continent are below the level of the sea. 
 Though this has not been proved, there are great 
 probabilities of its truth. At all events, if there 
 is any difference in favour of the land, it is exceed- 
 ingly slight. These facts should be borne in mind, 
 as having an important reference to the sequel. It 
 has been suggested, also, that the extraordinary 
 aridity of the inland parts of Australia is due 
 to the coast line being so much higher than the 
 interior, causing all winds charged with moisture 
 from the sea to have their moisture condensed upon 
 the coast, and thus pass dry over the interior. 
 But the coast is hardly high enough at any place to 
 effect this complete condensation, and practically 
 the rains are not found so very much _ heavier 
 nearer the sea. Probably the immense tract of 
 country the clouds have to pass over before reach- 
 ing the interior is a sufficient cause. But the me- 
 teorology of Australia is very peculiar, and can 
 hardly be generalised, as yet, or compared with 
 what occurs elsewhere, and it is certainly out of 
 my province to pursue it further here. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE SOILS. 
 
 DEPENDENCE OF SCENERY ON GEOLOGY.——DESCRIPTION OF DIS= 
 TRICT. — SWAMPS. — THEIR LOCALITIES AND PECULIARITIES. — 
 RIDGES AND THEIR VARIETIES. —— PLAINS. — HEATH AND 
 SCRUB. — FLORA OF THE DISTRICT. — SAND AND ITS ORIGIN. 
 — VARIETIES OF SOILS. — HONEYSUCKLE COUNTRY. — LIME- 
 STONE BISCUITS. —- BROKEN COUNTRY. — MAGNESIAN FERMENT- 
 ATION. — DISTRIBUTION OF TREES. — CAUSES FAVOURABLE TO 
 THEIR GROWTH. — LIVING INHABITANTS OF THE SWAMPS. — 
 LAGOONS AT GUICHEN BAY. — DEPOSIT OF BONES ON BANKS OF 
 SWAMPS— IN CREVICES. —- CONCLUSION, 
 
 EARLY every manual of geology commences by 
 remarking how much the scenery of a country 
 depends on its geological formation. The remark 
 might be carried further. Not only does scenery 
 depend upon geological formations, but also the 
 appearance of the cities and towns, and even the 
 character of the architecture. Who, for instance, 
 does not know how much the beauty of the city 
 of Bath depends on the excellence of the stone 
 with which it is constructed — how a traveller in 
 Auvergne is struck with the gloomy appearance of 
 the town, built of scoriz and lava? Our northern 
 cities, again, which are built in the neighbourhood 
 of granite quarries, have a massive style of ar- 
 chitecture, and imperishable buildings. Look at 
 
26 PORTLAND AND GUICHEN BAYS. 
 
 the trim appearance of the cities of the midland 
 counties, which have sandstone at command, or 
 the churches of chalk flints in the south, or the 
 neat houses of chalk in the same place. Other 
 instances innumerable might be cited, but one 
 more will be just mentioned, because it is a very 
 palpable one, and because it has reference to the 
 country now about to be described. 
 
 There are two ports on the south coast of Aus- 
 tralia, not very far from each other; one is Port- 
 land Bay, and the other Guichen Bay. The town 
 of the first, called Portland, is built upon a stream 
 of basalt, which has flowed from a submarine 
 crater at a time when the present site of Portland 
 was beneath the waves. Nothing could be more 
 cold and sombre than the appearance of the town, 
 and because the houses, churches, and all the build- 
 ings are constructed with dark basalt. Robe Town, 
 on the contrary, though situated in a most dreary 
 bed of sand-hills, has a cheerful and picturesque 
 appearance. It lies on a limestone tertiary for- 
 mation, which supplies a pure white and durable 
 stone for its buildings. It will be easily under- 
 stood, from these instances, how much scenery will 
 depend upon geology, if even cities do so.. And 
 more than this, the same formation generally gives 
 rise to the same scenic effects, so that unity of 
 rocky structure will cause unity of landscape. 
 
 In no place is this more evident than that part 
 of South Australia called the South-eastern Dis- 
 trict. As this is the territory where most of the 
 
THE SOUTH-EASTERN DISTRICT. 27 
 
 observations contained in this book were made, 
 some lengthened description will be necessary. It 
 is a territory included within the boundary between 
 Victoria and South Australia on the one side, and the 
 windings of the river Murray on the other. A re- 
 ference to the map, at the commencement of the 
 work, will show its precise position. The extent of 
 this country is about 290 miles from north to south, 
 with an average breadth of 70 miles from east to 
 west. The whole district is remarkably level and 
 horizontal; indeed, it may be called one extensive 
 plain, the only exception being some ridges, which 
 never rise more than 200 feet above it, besides ex- 
 tinct craters and half a dozen hills raised by trap 
 dykes. The latter are in the southern part, and will 
 be described hereafter. In the north, there are two 
 or three ranges of porphyry, consisting of chains 
 of small eminences, which run nearly east and west 
 for about 100 miles, terminating in a volcanic dis- 
 trict on the rivers Wimmera and Glenelg, twenty 
 miles over the colonial boundary. Though this coun- 
 try is, as stated, a dead level, very little elevated 
 above the sea, and, as far as scenery is concerned, 
 there is the most dreary sameness, yet there is con- 
 siderable unity in the nature of the plains. Thus, 
 in the south, immediately above the craters just 
 alluded to, nothing but immense swamps are to be 
 seen. These occupy a fearful quantity of what 
 might be otherwise available land. One alone, the 
 Dismal Swamp, is of vast magnitude, stretching 
 about thirty miles from east to west, and ten from 
 
28 DISMAL SWAMP. 
 
 north to south. Great as it is, it cannot be seen 
 in one view, because it is continually run through 
 with little island strips, or spurs of lands, which 
 are as thickly covered with scrub and lofty trees 
 as they can possibly be, so that the Dismal Swamp 
 is rather a chain of marshes than one vast morass. 
 Country of this description is not, however, con- 
 fined to the southern portion of the district; it is 
 more or less distributed over the whole. Swamps 
 are scattered here and there, from north to south, 
 as far as the plains last, that is, the grassy plains; 
 and not until the ‘Scrub’ commences are they 
 completely lost sight of. Some reason, however, 
 may be assigned for their greater prevalence south- 
 ward. The land rises very gradually from the 
 sea, and, therefore, the drainage is very imperfect. 
 There are no rivers in that part of the country, 
 and the water can only be conveyed underground, 
 after slow infiltration through the soft rock. The 
 surface water will therefore collect in all the hol- 
 lows, and there can be no doubt that the Dismal 
 Swamp is a shallow depression in a very large sur- 
 face of land. It is bounded on every side by very 
 low elevations, so low, indeed, as only to be noticed 
 by. their comparative dryness at all seasons of the 
 year.” 
 
 Whenever small swamps are isolated, they pos- 
 sess in this district peculiarities which deserve at- 
 tention. They usually have a considerable mound 
 
 * In very wet seasons there is a current in the Dismal Swamp 
 for about two months. It flows into the river Glenelg, Victoria. 
 
SWAMPS. 29 
 
 or ridge of good black soil on the eastern side. 
 This is easily accounted for. The swamps are 
 generally densely overgrown with rushes, reeds, 
 and a thick wiry grass. When the moisture by 
 which they are surrounded is dried up (which 
 occurs nearly every summer) the vegetation be- 
 comes dry and brittle, so as to be easily broken by 
 even the wind. When in winter the rain fills these 
 reservoirs again, westerly winds mostly prevail, 
 and the broken mass gets drifted over to the 
 eastern side, where it accumulates in very con- 
 siderable heaps. Thus the ridges become formed: 
 some of them are of great height, that is, consider- 
 ing their origin. They are, in many instances, 
 surmounted with large gum trees, which grow ex- 
 cellently on this moist and fertile soil. The great 
 size of these trees points to the antiquity of the 
 swamps in the position in which they now are, 
 because the ridges in which the trees are growing 
 must have taken ages before they could give any 
 depth of soil.* 
 
 Before going further into details, some apology 
 may be due for what follows, as not being in 
 keeping with the title of the work. Some facts are 
 to be mentioned which are more botanical than geo- 
 logical. It is hoped, however, that their connection 
 with the subject in hand will excuse their -intro- 
 duction, more especially as geology may be said to 
 have a domain in all the sister sciences, and to be 
 
 * These ridges are frequently about 100 yards long, 50 feet high, and 
 of considerable width, giving a very undulating character to the plains. 
 
30 BOTANICAL REMARKS. 
 
 more or less interested in whatever may elucidate 
 or aid them. The plan proposed in this book 
 is to commence with the surface, and proceed 
 through the different strata as they are found, 
 until the lowest known here is reached. This 
 chapter, then, though, perhaps, the least interest- 
 ing, is a necessary part of what follows, and must 
 be gone through. It could hardly be said to 
 be a complete geological enumeration which did 
 not show what were the peculiarities of the sur- 
 face over certain descriptions of strata. Besides 
 marshy ground, three other kinds of soil are 
 found. They are as follow :— Ridges or low ranges 
 of hills, with limestone cropping out; ridges of 
 sand; and sandy plains devoid of grass. The ridges 
 with limestone cropping out are the only eleva- 
 tions of any importance in the district, and these, 
 though never of any great elevation, always border 
 marshy country. They are always well grassed, 
 and not thickly timbered. The most common tree 
 on them is the Casuarina d’quefolia (the Shea 
 Oak of colonists), but others are common; the Bur- 
 saria Spinosa (a tree very like our privet); the 
 Banksia Integrefolia, or honeysuckle; the Huca- 
 lyptus Resinifera, or red gum, producing a resin 
 equal in medicinal properties to the kino gum, and 
 the Acacia Mollissima, or wattle, which exudes a 
 clear and useful gum, and is a really beautiful tree. 
 
 The soil is of a light red colour, and is evidently 
 directly derived from the decomposition of the out- ~ 
 cropping limestone. ‘The flora of these ridges is 
 
BOTANICAL REMARKS. 31 
 
 poor, seldom including more than grasses, and the 
 Pteris Esculenta, or common Australian fern. No- 
 thing, however, could be more picturesque than the 
 appearance of these limestone ridges in spring, as 
 then their lively green colour contrasts strongly 
 with the ordinary dead colour of Australian vege- 
 tation. In summer they are dreary enough. The 
 grass is then dry and withered, leaving the red soil 
 and dry rock disagreeably bare and parched. The 
 length of some of these ridges is very remarkable. 
 There is one which takes its origin at Penola, 
 and cuntinues in a northerly direction for more 
 than fifty miles, being higher towards its northern 
 extremity. All the way, it slopes down to the 
 westward into an open marshy country, very spa- 
 ringly timbered. There are many other ridges 
 as long as this and parallel to it, divided from each 
 other by plains, and this is one of the peculiar 
 features of the district. They will be further 
 noticed by and by, as also their caves and other 
 curiosities. 
 
 The next kind of country to be described is 
 that containing sandy ridges. These are gene- 
 rally thickly-timbered elevations, frequently form- 
 ing part of those just described. They are nearly 
 destitute of grass, but are very shrubby, rarely 
 supporting any other tree but a stunted and irre- 
 gular growth of Hucalyptus Fabrorum, or Stringy 
 Bark, whose bark is invaluable for roofing, and may 
 yet prove a superior material for ropes or coarse 
 paper, and whose wood is the most useful that 
 
32 MALLEE SCRUB. 
 
 the colonist has yet found for h uses, palings 
 shingles, &c. 
 
 The kind of sand which covers these hills varies 
 very much. Insome places it is fine, mingled with 
 loam and powdered limestone; in others, it is a 
 mixture of rounded pink felspar and clear quartz. 
 To describe where these sandy ridges are most 
 common would be to indicate the whole district. 
 They seem to occur everywhere, and run in all 
 directions, always excepting those plains which 
 are between the limestone ridges. Where they 
 are of any size and continuous, their course is 
 generally north and south, but they sometimes 
 skirt swamps, intersect the heaths, and run round 
 the edges of all the well-grassed country. 
 
 But the country which takes up the largest por- 
 tion of the district, with the exception of the Mallee 
 Serub, to which it is nearly allied, is what is termed 
 the heath. This is easily described: immense level 
 sandy tracts, heavy and dusty in summer, and 
 boggy in winter, supporting no grass, nor any trees 
 but those of a stunted and worthless character, run 
 through, here and there, with belts of short and 
 crooked ‘stringy bark,’ and in all other places 
 covered with tangled brushwood, about two feet 
 high — these are the features of the heath. Unfor- 
 tunately, as already stated, it occupies by far the 
 larger portion of the district. In fact, if a map 
 were coloured so as to represent only the available 
 land, it would be seen that but a very small portion 
 could be called such in this part of South Australia. 
 
HONEYSUCKLE COUNTRY. 33 
 
 What is there would be seen to run in narrow 
 strips, nearly north and south, and never more 
 than ten miles wide. Thus, there is a strip about 
 eight miles from the boundary, between the two 
 colonies, which commences at the south extremity 
 of the coast, and runs on to the Tatiara country, 
 where it is crossed by a little patch running east 
 and west. During nearly its whole course it is 
 bounded on the east side by a limestone ridge, and 
 on the west by a sandy one. Next to this strip, 
 about sixteen miles farther west (the intervening 
 country being filled with heath and sand hills), is 
 another line of grassed country, not so good as the 
 former, in consequence of its boggy nature, but of 
 much greater extent, being about fourteen miles 
 wide, if a ridge which runs through it be included. | 
 It runs far to the north, but the soil is very poor 
 and light during most of its course. This is the 
 honeysuckle country, of which more hereafter. 
 Finally, this territory is bounded on the north and 
 north-west by the Mallee Scrub, of which a more 
 detailed description must be given. 
 
 This portion of the south-eastern district of 
 South Australia, about 9000 square miles in ex- 
 tent, is one uninterrupted waving prairie of Luca- 
 lyptus dumosa (by the natives termed Mallee), 
 something like a bushy willow in appearance. It 
 commences about one hundred miles from the 
 southern extremity of the coast, and goes on (as 
 far as yet known), without any interruption of a 
 different description of country, right on to the 
 
 D 
 
34 MALLEE SCRUB. 
 
 north and north-west boundary formed by the river 
 Murray to this district. It continues on the other 
 side of the river, but with this we have nothing to 
 do just now. One road passes across it for about 
 one hundred miles from the Tatiara country to 
 Wellington Ferry, or the crossing-place of the 
 Murray. There is also a small patch of grassy 
 country on some porphyry ranges about twenty- 
 six miles within its edge, but, beyond this, it is con- 
 sidered impenetrable. Occasionally, however, an 
 adventurous settler has taken a few days’ supply 
 of water and provisions, and has gone fifty or sixty 
 miles beyond the nearest settlement, but such 
 journeys have only confirmed the idea, that the 
 scrub is totally unfit for any purposes. There are 
 only few places, however, where it can be even ex- 
 plored. The trees grow close together like reeds, 
 and certainly not thicker, without a branch, until 
 about fourteen feet from the ground, and so dense 
 are they, that ten and twelve stems may be counted 
 springing from one root, and occupy little more 
 than a square foot of ground. Where a road has 
 been cut through it, it appears as though there were 
 a high wall on each side; indeed, the effect is not 
 unlike that produced by a road through a trench. 
 It is strange, that while writers on Australia 
 give so much praise to the fertility of the country, 
 they forget to mention, that by far the larger por- 
 tion of it is taken up by deserts such as this. Not 
 only in this district, but in the whole of this South 
 Australia, there is not a single portion of available 
 
MALLEE SCRUB. 35 
 
 land which is not bounded either on the north, or 
 east, or west, by a similar desert, if the term can 
 be applied to tracts of land producing nothing but 
 useless stunted shrubs. The appearance of such 
 places is very gloomy. From any eminence you 
 see nothing but a dark brown mass of bushes, as far 
 as the eye can reach. The soil is generally a yellow 
 sand, and, when a patch of it is observed, it gives an 
 air of sterility in exchange for monotony. But the 
 outline is generally unbroken, seeming like a heav- 
 ing ocean of dark waves, out of which, here and 
 there, a tree starts up above the brushwood, making 
 a mournful and lonely landmark. On a dull day 
 the view is most sad, and even sunlight gives no 
 pleasure to the view, for seldom bird or living thing 
 ever lends a variety to the colour, while light only 
 extends the prospect, and makes it more hopeless. 
 If Tartary is characterised by its steppes, Ame- 
 rica by its llanas, savannahs, and prairies, and 
 Africa by its deserts, surely Australia has one 
 feature peculiar to itself, and that is its ‘ scrubs.’ 
 Not only do they recur constantly with the same 
 soil and the same peculiarities, but even in widely- 
 distant districts their flora is very similar. There 
 is something in them peculiarly Australian, which 
 entitles them to more attention than they have 
 received. Probably an attentive study of them 
 will lead hereafter to more than one important 
 result; but at least if it be asked: how Australia 
 differs from every other known continent, it may 
 be replied, in its scrubs, and their fauna and flora. 
 D 2 
 
36 AEATHS. 
 
 There is a great difference, however, between 
 what has been described as heath and the scrub; 
 the former is generally run through with belts of 
 stringy bark, which, in consequence of the great 
 prevalence of bush fires in brushy country, have 
 their trunks blackened and charred. Then there is 
 always more tea tree, Melaleuca paludosa, a bushy 
 shrub, which grows rather high; and, finally, 
 the grass tree, Xanthorrhea australis, gives a pe- 
 culiar semi-tropical air to the whole. This latter 
 tree, though frequently described in works on 
 Australia, deserves some short notice now. It is 
 generally a short round stem, about eighteen inches ' 
 high and six in diameter, surmounted by a bundle 
 of long, stiff, rushy grass, which droops gracefully 
 around, and out of the centre grows something 
 hke bulrush, only longer, stronger, and much 
 thicker in the stem. When these flower, as they 
 do in winter, the top of the bulrush becomes 
 covered with white stars, and a whole heath of 
 them in flower has a very pretty appearance. 
 
 The smaller scrub, on the contrary, is a succession 
 of clumps of the Hucalyptus dumosa, often bound 
 together by a creeping plant, which makes them as 
 impenetrable as a wall, and appearing like statues 
 at a short distance. But there is no other plant to 
 interrupt the growth where the mallee is_ thick, 
 or, at least, of any size. In both heath and scrub, 
 however, a shrub is common, which appears to 
 form part of both: this is the Banksia ornata, a 
 very stout shrub, with purplish flowers. 
 
HEATHS. 37 
 
 A view can seldom be obtained in the scrub 
 except from an eminence, whereas in the heath the 
 whole prospect lies before you in the very com- 
 mencement. Both, however, have a very varied flora, 
 though the balance is in this respect in favour of 
 the heath. In spring, nothing can exceed the varied 
 beauty which meets the eye on every side on both 
 places. There is, first, the Hpacris mmpressa, with 
 its spike of campanulate white or carmine flowers; 
 there is the Correa cardinalis, something like a 
 fuschia, tipped with yellow on the points of the 
 corolla; there is the Tetratheca ciliata, a charming 
 pink bell, and the Dillwynia floribunda, a tall spike, . 
 of orange papilionaceous flowers, and many others, 
 all most abundant, and charmingly beautiful. Of 
 course little is known of the flowers of the Mallee 
 Scrub, but it differs from the heath in many re- 
 spects. Many are found in the latter which are 
 not seen in the former, and vice versd, neither are 
 the three varieties of Mallee found anywhere ex- 
 cept in the scrub itself, or on its boundaries. Dr. 
 Miiller, the Government botanist, has done much 
 towards obtaining a knowledge of the scrub flora, 
 but of course it will not be complete until the 
 whole has been explored. 
 
 We have now seen that one peculiarity is com- 
 mon to a great portion of the district described, 
 both heath and scrub, and that is the sandy soil. 
 It has already been observed, that the same kind of 
 sand is not found in every place. In the Mallee it 
 is yellow, and seems to be mixed with a great deal 
 
38 SANDY SOILS. 
 
 of clay. In some parts of the heath it is white 
 mixed with black loam and pipe-clay, while the 
 hills generally have the coarse-grained variety, 
 with pink felspar. This last would appear to arise 
 ‘from the disintegration of the granitic or porphy- 
 ritic rock; but, with the exception of a range of 
 such rock in the Mallee Scrub, which runs from 
 east to west, there is nothing in the neighbourhood 
 to bear out such a supposition. It seems difficult 
 to imagine that such immense quantities of rock 
 could have disappeared without leaving any traces 
 on the hills where the sand now is, or indeed any 
 traces at all, except to the north, and a spot a little 
 to the east of the Mosquito Plains. As, however, 
 the pink sand is more common near the boundary, 
 and especially so within ten or twelve miles of 
 places where red granite now is, we must suppose 
 it to proceed from decomposed granite, whose loose 
 crystals have been scattered to great distances either 
 by winds or rains. The grains are rounded and 
 very large; probably some of the hillocks on which 
 they are found may have been granite hills. To 
 the sands on the heaths and sand ridges, attention 
 must next be drawn. It varies in different places 
 as to colour and consistency. That of the Mallee 
 Scrub is yellowish and firm, while that of the heath 
 is quite white and argillaceous, and like soft pipe- 
 clay in winter. It is almost unnecessary to re- 
 peat that this sandy soil occupies more than three- 
 fourths of the south-eastern district. It remains to 
 suggest a few ideas as to its origin. 
 
SANDY SOILS. 39 
 
 From what will be said in the next chapter, it 
 will be seen that, with one or two trifling excep- 
 tions, all the rocks of the district belong to one 
 formation : this is a tertiary limestone, containing, 
 amid portions of coral, &c., considerable quantities 
 of silica. ‘The decomposition of these strata would 
 give rise to a calcareous sand, such as that observed 
 in the district. But not alone from this does it 
 derive its origin. It will be shown, by and by, that, 
 prior to the upheaval of the rocks mentioned, they 
 were pretty generally covered with a deposit called 
 here crag. This was thrown down from numerous 
 ocean currents, which, with a large amount of sea- 
 sand, carried and stratified about small fragments 
 of shells and other marine detritus. This latter 
 deposit has nearly entirely disappeared, and can 
 only now be traced in a few places, where its great 
 hardness saved it from destruction. That its re- 
 moval was partly effected by aqueous agency, while 
 the land was being slowly upheaved, there can be 
 little doubt, but what little has remained after the 
 process now helps to form the soil of the immense 
 sand districts under consideration. A good instance 
 can be seen near the coast of the extent to which 
 the underlying rock composes the soil above. 
 There the whole line has recently been raised from 
 the sea; and, though the earth is of a dark colour, 
 and contains a good deal of vegetable matter, entire 
 shells are almost as common in it as pebbles in 
 gravel. About two feet below the surface a hard 
 limestone is reached full of shells of existing species. 
 
40. THE SOILS. 
 
 If this theory be correct for the origin of sand, 
 it remains to be asked, how, in some places, the soil 
 is black (in the neighbourhood of the swamps) and 
 in others red (on the limestone ridges), both good 
 land, well grassed, and lightly timbered, while in 
 other places nothing but sand is seen, though all 
 are resting on the same kind of strata? In an- 
 swering this, it must first be remembered that some 
 allowance must be made for varieties of composi- 
 tion in the rocks themselves; for, though they may 
 belong to the same age, and even be parts of the 
 same strata, yet the local circumstances may vary. 
 Thus, the rocks about Mount Gambier often con- 
 tain iron pyrites and rock-salt minerals rarely met 
 with in other parts of the formation. Again, in 
 some places, the rock is of the purest white, while 
 in others it is of a dark-red colour, with black 
 nodules. ‘To some such circumstance must be at- 
 tributed the fact, that on limestone ridges the soil 
 is a chocolate colour with the rock cropping out, 
 while in the same ridge nothing but sand is dis- 
 cernible. But the black soil of the grassy plains 
 requires a different explanation. In the formation 
 of these, two things have had a material influence; 
 namely, the lower level of the land, and the perma- 
 nence of a good deal of surface water. It has been 
 already stated that the good country (grass-sup- 
 porting) runs generally in parallel bands about 
 north and south, and it always has more elevated 
 land upon its eastern and western sides. Now this 
 causes a great amount of water to collect upon 
 them, and, as there are none which are not covered 
 
THE SOILS. 4] 
 
 with swamps and marshes, vegetable matter of 
 every kind gets swept down by the drainage. The 
 decomposition of this, besides the vegetation of the 
 marshes, gives rise to the black soil. The reason 
 why the same does not take place at the heath may 
 be because the heath is generally on a higher level, 
 and therefore so drained as to prevent the accumu- 
 lation of vegetable manure. Indeed, this would 
 appear to be the case, though it has not been ascer- 
 tained by actual measurement. There is an in- 
 stance of the kind on the river Glenelg, in Victoria. 
 This river has cut a very steep channel for itself. 
 The plains through which it runs are sandy heath 
 on the higher parts; but on a large flat, which im- 
 mediately borders the stream, the ground is well 
 grassed, the soil black, and extremely heavy in 
 winter. 
 
 It has just been said, that in all the grassy plains 
 there are numerous swamps, and some of great ex- 
 tent. The lower level is shown by this, but this 
 is not the only evidence. In winter, many square 
 miles are in some parts completely covered with 
 water a foot or so in depth. This is not seen in 
 the heath. It is true that certain depressions, like 
 the furrows of a ploughed field, cause the water to 
 collect in small pools in winter, but there is never 
 much of it in one place, and, even in these, the sand 
 is darker and the ground more consistent than what 
 is observed in the heath generally; a swamp will 
 also be occasionally seen in the heath, but the soil 
 close to it is black and firm. 
 
 The black soil of the plains is, from time to time, 
 
42 THE SOILS. 
 
 interrupted by blocks of very white limestone. 
 They are generally flat, rounded, of little thickness, 
 and do not appear to be attached to the rock below. 
 Such boulders (if the term may be applied to them 
 for convenience) are most common on the grassy 
 plains, and they appear to result from lime which 
 has been washed out-of the soil, and subsequently 
 hardened on the surface by the continued evapora- 
 tion of the water, in the hollows in which they are 
 placed. Such stones are, however, quite distinct 
 from the ‘biscuits’ known in the district, though 
 their origin is owing to a similar process. These 
 latter are found in what is called the ‘ honeysuckle 
 country;’ and, as that and the biscuits are very 
 peculiar characteristics of the districts, they must 
 be noticed separately. 
 
 The honeysuckle country, already alluded to, is, 
 in fact, just what its name implies—extensive flats 
 or plains growing little else but coarse rank grass 
 and the Banksia integrifolia. I must be excused 
 for turning aside for one moment todescribe the tree. 
 Though singular in appearance, it is far from being 
 a pretty tree. A dark grey bark on a short stem, 
 this giving rise to most irregular branches, whose 
 smaller twigs are covered with wedge-shaped leaves, 
 besides being studded over with flowers like a large 
 bottle-brush, is the character of the tree. When 
 the flowers are young they are yellow and almost 
 pretty, but as the tree is a very long time in flower, 
 their beauty is quite taken away by the proximity 
 of others in various stages of decay. This makes 
 
 SS ee 
 
 OC Ee 
 
LIMESTONE ‘ BISCUITS.’ 43, 
 
 the tree look old-looking, withered, and decidedly 
 unsightly, more especially as age makes it more 
 straggling, and the old seed-vessels remain on for 
 years. The flowers produce a good deal of honey 
 in spring, whence the colonial name. It is classed 
 among R. Brown’s Proteacee, in De Candolle’s Mo- 
 nochlamydee. From the description given, it will 
 be seen that a large plain, thickly studded with 
 such trees, would be rather uninteresting. But the 
 nature of the soil makes it farmore so. It may be 
 described as a dark grey pipe-clay, thinly grassed, 
 covered with water in winter, and holes in summer. 
 Cattle, by treading about it in winter and spring, 
 leave the ground covered with their deep foot-prints, 
 so that where the sun has baked the land the surface 
 is as uneven as troubled waters. Riding or driving 
 is particularly unpleasant in such a place; but 
 what makes them even dangerous is the existence 
 of numerous pitfalls, about a foot deep and wide. 
 These are made by a small cray-fish, which abounds 
 in the plains when it is covered with water. How 
 such large holes are excavated by so small an ani- 
 mal, appears quite mysterious. It must be sup- 
 posed that they are guided by instinct to do this, 
 in order that they may still have a home long after 
 the land has dried up elsewhere. 
 
 The ‘biscuits,’ however, are the great curiosities 
 of this honeysuckle country. These are round flat 
 pieces of limestone, of various sizes, as like wine 
 biscuits as stones could possibly be. Sometimes 
 they are small, that is, about the size of a penny- 
 
44 LIMESTONE ‘ BISCUITS.’ 
 
 piece, covering the ground so thickly that nothing 
 else can be seen on any side. In other places they 
 are quite as numerous, but rather more like dump- 
 lings than biscuits, being of a large size and nearly 
 spherical. They present everywhere a most sin- 
 gular appearance, more resembling a shingly beach 
 than a plain far removed from the sea. Generally 
 speaking, they are seldom found where there are 
 many trees, or where the soil is dark and black. 
 Any open space, thinly grassed, with a pipe-clay 
 soil, seems to favour their growth the most. Per- 
 sons would be led to imagine that they are the 
 remains of coast action— in fact, that the biscuits 
 are nothing more than what they most resemble, 
 namely, shingles; and this would appear more 
 probable, because, about fifteen miles west of the 
 locality where biscuits most abound, the ground is 
 strewn with shells of existing species, showing that 
 it cannot be very long since the sea was rolling 
 where they are found. But there are many reasons 
 why this is not the true account of their origin. 
 Shingles are seldom found except in the neighbour- 
 hood of cliffs, and there are no remains of anything 
 of the kind here. LBesides, on all the coast, even 
 where there are cliffs, no such things as shingles 
 are perceptible, because the limestone is of so soft 
 and friable a nature, that if any portions become de- 
 tached they are soon worn away. But the strongest 
 reason of all against their being shingles is, that a 
 much more satisfactory theory can be formed for 
 their origin — one also which is grounded on a 
 
LIMESTONE ‘ BISCUITS.’ 45 
 
 cause which is still presumed to be going on; it is 
 as follows :— | 
 
 It has been already observed that the ground is 
 generally pitted over with little depressions, in 
 which the remaining water collects as soon as the 
 dry weather sets in. These are the last to dry up. 
 In doing so, a small quantity of lime and pipe-clay 
 (in which soil they only occur) gets hardened into 
 a cake at the bottom. When the summer goes on, 
 and before they are quite dry, they curl up to some 
 extent, becoming detached from the ground, and, 
 when quite hardened, the atmosphere and rain, 
 during the ensuing winter, give them their rounded 
 form. That this is the whole of the process may 
 be easily perceived by any one who examines a few 
 of the biscuits where they are thickly strewn, and 
 then every stage of the process can be seen. Where 
 there is more lime and pipe-clay, the mud (for such 
 it is) gets detached in large fragments, and this is 
 the cause of the big spherical masses. Where they 
 are very small and thin, they appear to be formed 
 from a large sheet of hardened sediment, which has 
 cracked away and become subsequently broken 
 small by the weather. 
 
 This explanation, simple as it may appear, would 
 hardly be thought of at first sight. The appear- 
 ance of the plains, with scattered small rounded 
 stones, is so original and peculiar, that one might 
 pass, wondering over them, a hundred times, with- 
 out a satisfactory explanation occurring to him. 
 And yet, how simply they tell their own story when 
 
46 LIMESTONE ‘ BISCUITS.’ 
 
 examined; so true it is that natural phenomena 
 are open before us like a book to read from, if we 
 will only pay attention to every word and letter, 
 to everything presented. However, there might 
 arise cases where these stones would form a great 
 puzzle to a geologist. Supposing the land were to 
 be submerged’ again, and covered with another 
 formation : after an upheaval, a geologist, finding 
 a bed of these rounded fragments of irregular sizes, 
 would scarcely be inclined to attribute their origin 
 to the real cause. 
 
 It may be mentioned, that some of the ‘ biscuits ’ 
 are covered with small mammillations or rounded 
 protuberances, sometimes so far raised as to give 
 them the appearance of a piece of a nullipore coral. 
 As this is a constant form, and does not vary much 
 in the different specimens where it is found, it must 
 be due to some more regular cause than the weather. 
 Unless they arose from the splashing of rain-drops 
 from pools highly charged with lime, no other 
 cause can be assigned ; and that this is not a very 
 unreasonable hypothesis will appear from what will 
 be said at the end of the chapter. Some of the 
 ‘biscuits’ are also rather curiously honeycombed, 
 and appear like fragments of ‘scoriz, but this is 
 clearly due to weather-wearing. 
 
 In places where there is a mixture of sand and 
 pipe-clay, and, consequently, where the flora is of 
 a more diversified character, possessing often many 
 varieties of the Hucalyptus and Acacia, the soil has 
 another remarkable peculiarity. Itis known by the 
 
THE SOILS. 47 
 
 provincial name of ‘ Dead Men’s Graves,’ or ‘ Biscay 
 Country’— names whichare disagreeably expressive 
 of the real state of things. Large tracts of this 
 kind of soil are seen to be covered with mounds just 
 like graves in a churchyard, only far more closely 
 packed together than in the most thriving of our 
 intramural cemeteries. Sometimes these mounds are 
 two or three feet high, and then they are rounder 
 in form; but, more commonly, they are no more than 
 a foot in height, and then they are long and narrow, 
 exactly within the requirements of the name they 
 bear. They are never seen, except where there is 
 a good deal of surface-water in winter. Those who 
 have had an opportunity of watching them during 
 all seasons of the year, maintain that, during the 
 rainy season, when water has collected around them, 
 some of the rounder portions may be seen to heave 
 up and down in little bubbles, and the water all 
 about has a frothy appearance, as though fermen- 
 tation was going on. ‘This I have never observed; 
 but, as the account agrees very well with certain 
 facts, and, moreover, corresponds with a theory I 
 should have been inclined to propose for the origin 
 of some of these mounds, the observation is highly 
 probable. 
 
 The water on these flats, no matter what is the 
 colour of the soil, is of a very milky appearance, 
 even when in small quantities. When some of the 
 mounds are dug into, and the rock upon which 
 they lay is exposed to view, at a very moderate 
 depth, it is not a limestone, but a magnesian lime- 
 
48 THE SOILS. 
 
 stone or dolomite, very compact and hard. Now 
 the strata, as will be shown subsequently, to which 
 these rocks belong, are full of corals, and more com- 
 monly bryozoa corallines. These possess a large 
 quantity of magnesia, more, indeed, than any other 
 fossil.* At any rate, I have ascertained by analy- 
 sis that the quantity of magnesia, not only in the 
 rock but in all the springs which proceed from 
 it, is very large indeed. Now, though it is much 
 disputed, among scientific men, what is the precise 
 origin of dolomite, yet it is considered pretty nearly 
 proved that it is not always produced by the same 
 cause, and it is generally recognised that pseudo- 
 morphic action causes it, and this action takes place 
 more frequently at the surface of rocks than any- 
 where else; very probably, therefore, the fermenta- 
 tion observed is the result of the chemical action 
 of carbonates of magnesia and lime upon each 
 other, and this action gives rise to those mounds 
 whence the gas escapes and where dolomite is 
 found. Water would appear to be the exerting 
 cause, aided, no doubt, by the warm temperature 
 which prevails in this climate. As to what is the 
 nature of the action, or what kind of gas emanates 
 from these bubbles, cannot be more than guessed, 
 
 * Forchammer analysed a great many shells to praye this, and found 
 that, while univalves such as the Cerithiwm telescopicum and Nautilus 
 Pompilius contained, respectively, only such small quantities of mag- 
 nesia as 0°189, 0°118 per cent., Corals, such as the Jses hippuris or 
 . Corallium nobile, contained as much as 6°362, 2°132. Dana, also, in 
 his investigations on dolomite, proves that coralline rocks contain 
 sometimes more than 38 per cent. of carbonate of magnesia. Species 
 of the Isis are very common in the strata here referred to, 
 
THE TREES. 49 
 
 without observation; but, as dolomite is proved to 
 be a double salt of magnesia, lime, and carbonic 
 acid, the proportions of which have not been ex- 
 actly ascertained, probably the gas is carbonic 
 acid, more being in the lime than is required for 
 the salt, and becomes, consequently, liberated. But 
 this is mere conjecture. 
 
 To prevent this theory being applied too widely, 
 it is not meant to account for the origin of all 
 the broken country —or even of all the mounds— 
 which occur in the same locality; the greater 
 proportion of them are undoubtedly due to the 
 unequal effect of water upon the soils on which it 
 lays. Certainly, the limestone alone cannot be 
 considered a proper accounting cause, for these 
 mounds are found in places where there is no lime- 
 stone at all; neither do they occur everywhere, 
 though the same rock be present, and the surface 
 covered with water for a long time during the 
 winter. 
 
 Iam almost tempted to stray out of the limits 
 to which this book should be confined, to speculate 
 upon one very peculiar feature of this district, 
 namely, the distribution of the trees. There have 
 already been described localities which are covered 
 with trees of only one kind, as the Mallee Scrub, 
 the Stringy Bark, and the Honeysuckle country. 
 Again, in the southern parts of the district, every 
 available rise is tenanted by a great variety of trees. 
 There are parts of the Mosquito Plains barely 
 tenanted by any trees at all; in fact, many square 
 
 E 
 
50 THE TREES. 
 
 miles could be picked out growing nothing but 
 grass. What is the cause of this? As there are 
 great doubts in my own mind whether I could 
 throw any light upon the subject by the few ob- 
 servations I have made, I will not dwell further 
 on the subject than to state one rule which appears 
 to me to be universal-here. Wherever there is an 
 elevation, no matter how moderate, provided it be 
 sufficient to obtain drainage, and has any kind of 
 soil fitted to support vegetation, trees will abound, 
 thicker, perhaps, in proportion to the shelter they 
 receive: so true is this that the converse may almost 
 be relied upon; and, whenever trees are found more 
 abundantly in certain spots, these may be considered 
 higher than the country immediately around, even 
 though the difference may not be perceptible. Per- 
 haps it will bea sufficient excuse for this digression 
 to mention, that from minutie of the kind a good 
 idea can only be obtained of the aspect of the 
 district I wish to bring before my readers. | 
 
 Some peculiarities of the swamps must yet be 
 mentioned before this chapter concludes. As to 
 their living inhabitants, their name is legion. A 
 small fish is common to them all. Though often 
 seen by me in the water, it has never received a 
 closer examination. ‘The bones of them may be 
 found, from time to time, embedded in the mud. 
 What is somewhat curious, these fish are found in 
 small waterholes which have no connection with 
 any running stream, and have been dry all the 
 summer. The natives call the fish Lap-lap, and 
 
THE LAKES. 51 
 
 seem to be fond of them, though I have never seen 
 any larger than about two inches long. There is 
 also the cray-fish, already alluded to as occurring in 
 the plains. The shells of these are also very fre- 
 quently found embedded in the mud. There are 
 also the usual amount of fresh-water mollusca. 
 The species of these vary in number in different 
 localities. Thus, for instance, in the neighbour- 
 hood of Penola, the Limnea stagnalis, or a spe- 
 cies closely allied, is very common. Some of the 
 swamps are full of them, and those which are 
 shallow and become dry every year have the bottom 
 whitened over with their numerous thin and tran- 
 sparent shells. Thus are fresh-water beds formed. 
 On the Mosquito Plains a variety of the Paludina 
 is most common, but their shells are never very 
 numerous. In some of the brackish lakes above the 
 plains the mollusca abound most, and are really 
 a most singular feature. At a place called Lake 
 Roy there are several salt or brackish marshes, 
 covered with the usual tangled dank vegetation. 
 One, however, is rather clearer than the rest, and this 
 has all round its margin what appears at a distance 
 not unlike a bank of sand. It is entirely composed 
 of small shells of fresh-water mollusca, being, as I 
 believe, a species of Paludina. None of them are 
 more than about half an inch in length, and very 
 few attain even that length, so the numbers may be 
 guessed when they form a deposit several feet thick 
 many yards round a lake certainly more than half 
 
 E 2 
 
52 THE LAKES. 
 
 a mile broadandlong. There isa singular scarcity 
 of land shells all over this district. I never met 
 with any but a few of one species of Succinea in 
 the sand-drift near Guichen Bay. There are a 
 great many varieties of the minute crustacean 
 Cypris in every lake, but more especially in the 
 water which has collected at the bottom of caves. 
 In some of these little subterranean lakes at Mount 
 Gambier the water actually looks turbid from their 
 immense numbers, and, if a little of the mud is 
 taken from the bottom and examined, it will be 
 found to consist almost entirely of their shells. 
 The Cyclops vulgaris is also extremely common 
 here as elsewhere, and serves in like manner to give 
 the water a troubled appearance, so numerous does 
 it at length become in some of the swamps. Many 
 other of. their living inhabitants might here be 
 enumerated, but they would, from the above speci- 
 men, form but little exception to what are found 
 in fresh and salt water. As yet, my attention has 
 very little diverted to the microscopic forms occur- 
 ring in them, though I have no doubt there is a 
 
 very rich field open to the investigator, not only 
 
 for Infusorie, properly so called, but for many new 
 varieties of Desimade and Diatomacee. The sands 
 also, which are so very plentiful in this district, 
 have shown that in many instances they are entirely 
 composed of the siliceous shields of Diatomacee. 
 In one cave, indeed, where the sand had the con- 
 sistence of white flour, and appeared somewhat 
 different from the arenaceous deposits in other 
 
 a 
 
 ras - 
 a ee ae 
 
THE LAKES. 53 
 
 localities, it was found to be wholly composed of 
 the frustules of these minute beings. 
 
 It is worth while here to mention two other 
 swamps which are remarkable for their deposits, es- 
 pecially as there will be no other place in this work 
 where they can be conveniently noticed. One is 
 a fresh-water lagoon, not very far from Guichen 
 Bay. It is shallow and dries annually, and then 
 its bottom and sides seem to be encrusted with 
 a white efflorescence very much like salt. Many 
 persons who have been constantly passing this 
 lake assured me that the lake water was salt, and 
 that the white deposit was the crystallised salt. 
 On examination, however, the water was found to 
 be fresh, and the deposit no other than an amazingly 
 thick growth, of a very white variety of the com- 
 mon Chara.* The quantity of this little plant is 
 enormous, since it covered the whole bottom of the 
 lagoon, and the banks are formed of broken por- 
 tions, some inches in thickness. The other lake 
 worthy of notice is close to the sea, very deep, and 
 with its banks crowded with a rank vegetation. 
 One of the shrubs found there occurs in no other 
 part of this colony, so far to the east, excepting on 
 a few spots near the shore: this is the Corethro- 
 stylis Schultzenit. 'The waters of the lake are very 
 salt and bitter, and of a dark yellow colour. It is 
 so highly charged with lime and magnesia that 
 pieces of wood and roots of trees plunged into it 
 
 * Lake Wallace, another fine sheet of water, is covered with a very 
 thick growth of Vallisneria spiralis. 
 
54 THE LAKES. 
 
 become in a very short time enamelled with lime- 
 stone. There can be little doubt that, if left long 
 enough, it would change the texture of the inter- 
 nal parts of the wood and partly petrify it. The 
 bottom is of very soft clay, so deep and finely 
 levigated that a pole may be plunged ten or twelve 
 feet into it with a very small pressure. What is 
 very singular, the lake, though scarcely a hundred 
 yards across, abounds with fish. I have been in- 
 formed that it was the custom of persons fishing 
 on the coast to place very small ones in this lake. 
 Some of them are now very large, and how they 
 exist in water so highly impregnated with salt is 
 certainly curious. 
 
 In mentioning that some of the swamps have 
 high banks of vegetable mould round them, it 
 should be stated that these have sometimes been 
 found by me to contain bones of small marsupiala 
 of existing species, at a very small depth below 
 the surface. It is easy to understand how these 
 become embedded there. During the summer, the 
 swamp being dried up, the bottom becomes a place 
 of resort for vegetable-feeding marsupials, as the 
 grass is longer and greener there than elsewhere. 
 Here the smaller ones frequently fall a prey, to the 
 eagles (Aquila fucosa) and other birds of prey, 
 unfortunately too common in the district, who 
 leave the bones after devouring their victims. I 
 have frequently met with remains of this kind when 
 riding across the dry swamps. The westerly winds 
 in winter heap these up with the other detritus on 
 
THE LAKES. 55 
 
 to the mounds. Bones of larger animals have also 
 been found in the same sort of place, but not in 
 this district. At Lake Colac, not far from Geelong, 
 on a huge mound, near the lake, a great quantity 
 of very large bones were found, as I am informed 
 by a gentleman who resided near there. Probably 
 they were bones of that large kangaroo called the 
 Euro, which is only now found in the very far north, 
 but which, from bones in my possession, obtained 
 from caves in this district, must, at one time, have 
 flourished as far south as this latitude, which is 
 little, if any, to the north of Lake Colac. They 
 might, however, have been bones of the extinct 
 marsupials, similar to those found on the Hunter 
 River, New South Wales. 
 
 The animals to which the bones belonged very 
 likely perished in the soft mud of the lake, in 
 attempting to get water. Similar instances are of 
 daily occurrence. Persons unacquainted with the 
 locality are often astonished at the quantity of bones 
 of cattle, sheep, and horses which are round some 
 of the deep swamps, which must have accumulated 
 during the last seventeen years, as the district 
 has not been settled upon longer. But in every 
 dry season the mystery is solved. The poor ani- 
 mals are driven by thirst to go far into the mud 
 before they can reach the water, and, being unable 
 to extricate themselves from thence, perish, and 
 leave their bones to be embedded or washed up 
 during the ensuing winter. Kangaroo, wombats, 
 &c., will only be found near watering-places in 
 
56 DRI¥FTED DEPOSITS. 
 
 summer, and the latter, though they burrow in dry 
 places, will often go a very long distance in search 
 of water. It is curious to remark, that though I 
 have seen hundreds of kangaroo in different places, 
 at all seasons of the year, I have never but in one 
 instance seen any of them drinking. | 
 
 This chapter has been devoted to the description 
 of those formations where geological relics may be 
 found from what is now taking place. There is no 
 other deposit of bones found, except in the crevices 
 of the limestone rock, where, in consequence of the 
 drifting of the winds, or by the force of rains, little 
 masses of relics of existing animals may be looked 
 for. One instance will suffice :—At a round water- 
 hole, near Mount Gambier, caused by the falling 
 in of the rock, little drifts of what look like roots 
 may be found on the ledges of the strata above the 
 water ; they are composed of broken fossils from 
 the rock above, withered leaves, roots, and the 
 bones of native cats (Dasyurus Maugit), which 
 live in these crevices and prey on birds, &e., and 
 some birds, in which those of the young of the 
 native magpie (Gymnorrhina leuconota) are the 
 most common. In some cases, the water charged. 
 with lime drips from above, and forms these into 
 a conglomerate, which would be easily mistaken 
 for part of the limestone strata, if the observation 
 were not carefully made. 
 
 This rather lengthy chapter must now ms 
 brought to a close, and we pass on to the deposit 
 of coralline rock, to which so many references have 
 been made. 
 
57 
 
 NOTE TO CHAPTER ITI. 
 
 There is a curious circumstance connected with these swamps 
 which have an underground drainage, which, in any other than a new 
 country, would surely have been invested with some ghostly legend. 
 Every evening, during spring and the early part of summer, distant 
 groanings are heard, like the lowing of a large herd of cattle, and very 
 resonant, near a few swamps, such, for instance, as that situated near 
 Mr. Donald M‘Arthur’s station, Limestone Ridge. Generally, three 
 such echoing sounds are heard, and then about half an hour’s repose. 
 I believe the sounds are. entirely due to a column of air resisting a 
 column of water, which is draining through the limestone, and finally, 
 being driven back or forwards, according to the periodical increase of 
 the weight of water. To one ignorant of the cause, the sounds are 
 mournful and startling in the extreme, and they are not heard in the 
 day, probably because there are so many other sounds of cattle, &c., 
 to mingle and be confused with them. 
 
 On the coast also, where there are sand-stones (to be subsequently 
 spoken of), noises like distant artillery are heard on windy days. Dr. 
 Phipson mentions these sounds as being very common on the sandy 
 parts of the coast of England, and is at a loss to assign a cause. It 
 seems, however, to be in some way connected with large collections of 
 sand. Sturt mentions that when in the Australian desert, surrounded 
 by the high hills of red sand of that inhospitable country, he was 
 startled one morning by hearing a loud, clear, reverberating explosion, 
 like the booming of artillery. The next morning he heard it again. 
 The mornings were calm and clear, and they were at least 600 miles 
 from the settled districts. My brother (Mr. T. A. Woods), when at 
 Mount Serle, in the horseshoe of Lake Torrens, which is a very sandy 
 desert, has frequently heard the same loud boomings on fine clear days. 
 ' They seemed to come with a startling echo from the sandhills, and 
 reverberated fora long time among the hills. Mitchell and Sturt have 
 observed the same thing in other parts of Australia, May the cause 
 not be similar to that which makes the sand musical at Kigg (see 
 Hugh Miller’s ‘Cruise of the Betsy,’ chap. iv.), the sonorous moving 
 sand at Reg Rawan, Cabul, and the thundering sand of Jabel Nablous, 
 in Arabia Petreea? In the latter case, the mere falling of the sand 
 on the rock beneath made a sound like distant thunder, and caused 
 the rocks to vibrate. The ultimate cause is quite unexplained. 
 
58 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE ROCKS. 
 
 STRATA OF THE PLAIN.——THEIR UNIFORMITY.— CHARACTER OF 
 THE ROCKS. — HORIZONTALITY OF THE BEDS, — DISTRIBUTION 
 OF FOSSILS.——SAND PIPES.—NATIVE WELLS.— FLINT LAYERS. 
 — THEIR ORIGIN. — SEPARATION OF SILICA. —— IRON PYRITES 
 AND ROCK SALT.— SALT PANS. —— FOSSIL BRYOZOA.—— AGGRE- 
 GATION OF FOSSILS. — AGE OF THE BEDS. — CORALS. — HOW 
 DEPOSITED.— PREVAILING BRYOZOA. —— COMPARISON OF THESE 
 BEDS WITH REMAINS OF CORAL REEFS. — DIFFICULTY AS TO 
 THE NATURE OF THE CORAL. — EXTENT OF THESE BEDS. 
 
 AVING occupied some considerable space in 
 the description of what is seen on the surface 
 
 of this part of South Australia, that is to say, the 
 physical features, the soils and their products, it 
 now remains to describe what peculiarities are 
 next in succession, thus bringing us to the con- 
 sideration of the rocks. The district has already 
 been described as an immense plain, with very few 
 elevations of any kind, and certainly none that can 
 be considered hills. Under such circumstances, 
 very great uniformity in the underlying strata 
 must be expected, and, therefore, very little geo- 
 logical variety; for abrupt transitions from the 
 rocks of one period to those of others far removed 
 in age are only found in hilly countries, where 
 there has been much upheaval denudation and 
 
THE LIMESTONE. 59 
 
 general disturbance. Near Adelaide, for instance, 
 where bald and rugged hills are common, the most 
 sudden changes are observed in the nature of the 
 strata. Thus, Mount Lofty is a metamorphic 
 rock, continually changing in its gullies to slates, 
 porphyries, schists, and black limestone, and these, 
 again, are often covered with tertiary limestone. 
 It must be stated, however, that uniformity is the 
 rule rather than the exception in Australia, and 
 perhaps there may have been less disturbance 
 altogether in the southern than in the northern 
 hemisphere. At all events, the locality now under 
 consideration is of a very uniform character, there 
 being a large territory occupied by one formation, 
 and this without alteration of level, break, or 
 interruption. 
 
 Of the large area spoken of in the previous 
 chapter, and covering many thousand square miles, 
 the series of strata all belong to one period and 
 have been formed under the same circumstances, 
 and, in all probability, during the,same geological 
 period. ‘There are only one or two exceptions to 
 this continuity, and these are not breaks but 
 patches, where a more modern deposit lies above 
 the older and larger strata. The lowest and oldest 
 will be first described, because they are the most 
 important, and a knowledge of their characters 
 enables us much better to understand the circum- 
 stances under which the others are formed. The 
 nature of the rock now first deserves attention. 
 
 At about four feet below the surface (sometimes 
 
60 THE UPPER LIMESTONE. 
 
 less, though seldom more, ) a brittle white limestone 
 is met with. It is generally friable, and, being 
 much decomposed, contains no fossils. By decom- 
 position is meant that it is as fine as flour when 
 dry, and run through in every direction with 
 little veins of clay, which are very like in colour 
 and consistence to the chocolate soil above the 
 rock. This goes occasionally to some thirty feet 
 below the surface, though sometimes not so far. 
 It is, at times, entirely absent, then regular signs 
 of stratification occur with the commencement of 
 organic remains. Here the rock changes its 
 nature ; instead of being loose and friable, it is 
 hard and close. It is quite white, resembling 
 chalk, being easily cut with a saw, and, though 
 rather soft, answers excellently for building pur- 
 poses, giving rise (from the easy manner in which 
 it is worked) to a more decorated style of archi- 
 tecture than is usually met with in the bush. 
 There are no marks of stratification in small 
 portions of the stone, but where a large section of 
 the beds is seen such traces are very distinct. It 
 is there observed that there are strata occurring 
 every fourteen feet with great regularity, and in 
 nearly every case parallel with the horizon. 
 This latter fact shows that there has been no 
 violent upheaval. The structure of the strata is 
 
 not always the same in every case. In general, . 
 
 where the fossils are large, and containing many 
 bivalve shells, the stone is very hard and du- 
 rable; but where there are only bryozon fossils, or 
 
FOSSILS. ~* 61 
 
 foraminiferous remains, the stone is mere powder 
 when disturbed. In the latter case, the only thing 
 which gives it the least consistency is the occur- 
 rence of twisted concretions, whose appearance 
 and origin are best treated of in a subsequent 
 chapter. 
 
 It is generally remarked that the different 
 strata preserve distinct characters. Either the 
 bivalve shells will predominate, and then the 
 whole stratum be firm and hard, or else they will 
 be entirely wanting, and the stratum soft and 
 powdery. Sometimes a stratum will be found 
 with a character more or less between the two, 
 but this is unusual. Without stopping now to 
 examine the nature of the organic remains, any 
 more than to state that the most passing exami- 
 nation shows the rock to be nothing else than a 
 ‘mass of fossils cemented together, and even the 
 dust is seen by the microscope to teem with the 
 relics of life, several other peculiarities of the 
 strata have now to be mentioned. 
 
 The stone has been described as very like chalk. 
 This resemblance might be ascribed to the whole 
 formation. Many analogies might be here men- 
 tioned, but two things which make the likeness 
 very striking are here selected: these are ‘ sand- 
 pipes’ and layers of black and white chalk flints. 
 The first are well known to those who have exa- 
 mined any of the chalk-beds of Kurope. They are 
 described by Sir C. Lyell as ‘deep hollows of a 
 
 cylindrical form, found penetrating the white chalk, 
 
62 * SAND PIPES. 
 
 and filled with sand and gravel.’ They all taper 
 downwards, and end in a point. As a general 
 rule, sand and pebbles occupy the central parts 
 of each pipe, while the sides and bottom are lined 
 with clay. The strata under consideration are full 
 of these. When a section of the rocks, they are 
 observed in great numbers, some about eighteen 
 inches in width, and not extending below the first 
 stratum ; others are wider than two feet, and 
 going to a considerable depth. Sir Charles Lyell 
 supposes these to have arisen, in the first instance, 
 by coast action, and to have been subsequently 
 defined by the action of water charged with car- 
 bonic acid, which would dissolve and decompose 
 the limestone. The clay in the stone would be de- 
 rived partly from the disintegration of the stone 
 and partly from above. This is the theory received 
 at present. Two circumstances observed here tend 
 to bear out its truth. Whenever the limestone is 
 decomposed, it gives rise to clay very much like 
 what is found in these pipes, and their cylindrical 
 form is due to a process which is seen at present 
 in operation on the coast. In the latter place, 
 wherever the sea has much action on the rocks, 
 the pipes are seen in every stage of their formation ; 
 sometimes as a mere basin, where the water col- 
 lects and dissolves the limestone; in places as 
 little wells of varymg depths, and in this and every 
 other instance lined with a coating of laminated 
 limestone all round, so that the surface of the 
 outermost coat forms a continuous lining to the 
 
SAND PIPES. 63 
 
 pipe. It does not appear why these should form 
 so rapidly as they evidenily do. In other respects, 
 the phenomena may be explained by supposing 
 the sea-water to dissolve the limestone and re-pre- 
 cipitate it with some of its own salts round its sides 
 during the evaporation of the water. The solvent 
 power of the water, and not the violence with which 
 it is dashed into these pipes, can be alone looked to 
 for an explanation, for the process goes on in those 
 which are only filled by rain. There will be occa- 
 sion, by and by, to mention these pipes again, in 
 connection with the so-called fossil-trees so common 
 on the Australian coast. 
 
 Next to these pipes in resemblance and in inte- 
 rest are what are termed the ‘ native wells.’ These 
 are round hollow tubes, going to a great depth 
 (generally the water-level), three or four feet wide, 
 and bearing considerable likeness to an artificial 
 well. Between Mount Gambier and Mount Shanck 
 the ground is studded all over with these wells ; 
 some are as wide as five feet, and have been 
 sounded with a hundred feet of line without find- 
 ing bottom, though water has been obtained at 
 depths varying from sixty to ninety feet. Their 
 origin must be different from the sand pipes. They 
 are, perhaps, connected with caves or reservoirs of 
 water underneath, and when, in consequence of 
 some original depression in the ground, the water 
 was able to rest upon the limestone and decompose 
 it, a passage was easily formed to the water-level 
 below. This is merely offered as a suggestion. 
 
64 FLINT LAYERS. 
 
 One fact (probably of not much importance either 
 way) may be mentioned: — The ‘ native wells,’ as 
 they are called, are only seen where caves are com- 
 mon, and where the ground in the vicinity sounds 
 hollow on percussion. At a cave in the township 
 of Mount Gambier, where a long subterranean pas- 
 sage is filled with water, several of these natural 
 wells lead down to it, and one or two may be 
 noticed where a section of the strata is seen, and 
 the decomposing rock in one well has not yet 
 reached the cave. Though this is broad, it is filled 
 with clay, while another narrower has _ bored 
 through and is empty. 
 
 The next point of resemblance between these 
 strata and the chalk is the occurrence of layers of 
 flint similar to those met with in the latter forma- 
 tion. Their characteristics are almost the same as 
 those found in Europe, being most frequently black, 
 containing sponges, corals, spiniferites, &c., im- 
 bedded and occurring in layers. Some of them 
 are large and rounded; but at one place on the 
 coast (Port M‘Donnell) they occur in sheets of 
 very great extent, and about two or three inches 
 thick, and are quarried and used as flags. It is 
 stated by those who have had much experience as 
 well-sinkers in this neighbourhood, that a layer of 
 them is always found immediately above the water 
 level, and, as far as my own observation goes, the 
 strata are generally parallel with those layers. 
 
 It is generally admitted, by those who have 
 written on the subject of the chalk flints, that they 
 
FLINT LAYERS. 65 
 
 are derived from the filtration of silica through the 
 strata, but it has not been satisfactorily explained 
 why they should occur in layers, nor what is the 
 nature of the process by which silica acid becomes 
 free. Perhaps one circumstance has been over- 
 looked in the theory of filtering through. Though 
 water will dissolve a certain amount of silica, it 
 will much more readily dissolve carbonates of lime 
 and magnesia. Supposing each to have been dis- 
 solved in small proportions, silica should have been 
 the last to filter through, because its specific gravity 
 is less than either of the other salts, It may be 
 that chemical action goes on between the carbon- 
 ates of lime and magnesia, in the formation of 
 dolomite, which contains a very small portion of 
 silica, and that, mechanically mixed,* this leaves 
 the silica to aggregate by itself. Sea water does 
 not contain much of. the latter mineral, and 
 coral scarcely more. Sponges, however, and their 
 spicula, contain a great deal, and the shells of 
 infusoria are nearly entirely composed of it. 
 Both are most abundant in the sands on the 
 coast, and may probably have been so where the 
 flints are found; in fact, the latter often contain 
 fossil sponges as a nucleus. That chemical changes 
 do take place in the rocks, and lead to an associa- 
 tion of minerals of one kind, is seen, from another 
 part of the same formation, at Portland, Victoria, 
 where there are many veins of soapstone occurring 
 in the strata, and running through them without 
 * Forchammer. 
 i 
 
66 FLINT LAYERS. 
 
 any appearance of a break or dislocation in the 
 rock. 
 
 It may be remarked, as serving to elucidate the 
 origin of such nodules, that they are only found 
 where the beds are proved to have been derived 
 from coralline and coral beds, rich in fossil corals, 
 bryozoa, sponges, and infusorie. The beds now 
 described are tertiary, certainly not the only ones 
 which contain flint — features at one time sup- 
 posed to be confined to the chalk. There can be 
 no doubt that observation is much wanted as to the 
 manner in which silica may be deposited by filtra- 
 tion. Quartz veins of segregation are familiar to 
 every one, and there will be yet occasion to describe 
 instances of segregation which will prove that a 
 great deal has yet to be learned before a compre- 
 hensive theory can be formed, which account for 
 the many and various facts met with. Mr. Sorby’s 
 important paper on the microscopic structure of 
 crystals (read before the Geological Society, Decem- 
 ber 2, 1857) is something done in this particular. 
 As this has shown where the field lies, its value 
 can scarcely be overrated. It has thrown light 
 where all before was gloomy conjecture. Though 
 any theory would as yet be premature, yet geolo-_ 
 gists can already see which way facts tend, and at 
 any rate there is something to work upon —an 
 opening for the thin edge of the inductive wedge. 
 
 The fact of the strata being similar in compo- 
 sition to the chalk, besides containing flints and 
 sand pipes, might mislead superficial observers, who 
 had not examined the fossil, to think the two depo- 
 
FLINT LAYERS. 67 
 
 sits identical. This is one of the many examples 
 of the fallacy of laying any stress on such charac- 
 teristics. Physical properties (if the term may be 
 allowed) may produce the same results in strata 
 vastly remote from each other. In all cases where 
 such grounds are adopted as part of a classification 
 it would be well to be sure that peculiar circum- 
 stances may not produce such resemblances where 
 dissimilarity exists in every other respect. Had 
 this precaution been adopted by the earlier geolo- 
 gists, the science would not now be encumbered 
 with such ambiguous terms as red sandstone, oolite, 
 mountain limestone, &c., &c. It may even be 
 doubted whether, at the present day, definitions of 
 deposits included in any geological period are not 
 encumbered too much with particulars of struc- 
 ture. ‘This is a great embarrassment to the young 
 student in remote countries. Fossils should alone 
 be relied upon. This is one of the many instances 
 of the superiority of a natural system of classifica- 
 tion, even although an artificial one may be useful 
 at times and always easy. 
 
 In addition to flint layers, other minerals are 
 found : they are iron pyrites and rock salt. The first 
 is uncommon ; it is only found near flints, which 
 are much reddened by the oxide of iron. It hangs 
 down, like small stalactites, in cavities in the 
 rock. The colour outside is a dark-reddish brown, 
 the fracture showing yellow crystals of feeble 
 brilliancy. ‘The rock salt is hard, massive, and 
 opaque, so purely white as to be easily mistaken 
 
 F 2 
 
68 ROCK SALT. 
 
 for quartz. Very little has been found. It occurs 
 on the upper side of the great divisions into which 
 the strata are divided. Being found in cakes, its 
 external aspect is rather singular, such, indeed, as 
 to make it with difficulty distinguishable from the 
 rock by which it is surrounded. ‘The upper side 
 is covered over with a crust of dust, like the pow- 
 dery rock, which looks as if it had fallen on the 
 salt at a time when it was in a soft state, and to 
 have become subsequently agglutinated by drying 
 on. The appearance is very like the surface of dried 
 glue on which sawdust had been sprinkled while 
 warm. No doubt the cause has been the deliques- 
 cent nature, which melts in damp moist weather, 
 and hardens again in drier seasons. Its existence 
 here is not easily accounted for. Whatever may 
 be the theories with regard to rock salt when it oc- 
 curs in large beds or pans, or when it is associated 
 with volcanic emanations, as in the Carpathian 
 Mountains, certainly no such theories will apply 
 here. There is nothing in the rock where it occurs 
 different from places where no rock salt is found — 
 no traces of anything like an immense evaporating 
 surface, and so its presence is simply an enigma. 
 Perhaps sea water might have flowed down the 
 cracks of the rock, and have become evaporated as 
 fast as it was supplied; but it must be owned that 
 nothing has been seen to bear out the idea. In 
 this case, it would be too gratuitous an hypothesis 
 to adopt the theory of chemical action as a cause, 
 acting in a similar manner to that in which dolo- 
 mites, pyrites, and flints are produced. 
 
SALT PANS, OR ‘ SALINAS.’ 69 
 
 It may be mentioned here, though more properly 
 belonging to another chapter, that salt pans, or 
 ‘salinas,’ are not uncommon in the district. These 
 are immense basins or swamps, filled with brine in 
 the rainy season, and in summer the water evapo- 
 rates, leaving a thick crust of salt in the bottom, 
 white and glistening, giving the appearance of the 
 ground being covered with snow. Such places as 
 these serve to supply the country round with salt. 
 It is not of a good description, being generally very 
 coarse and dirty, somewhat bitter in taste, and 
 always containing a small admixture of sulphates 
 of lime and magnesia. Round most of the lakes 
 there is a border of whitish mud, of a very fetid 
 odour, and in this large crystals of gypsum and 
 natron occur. 
 
 There is no difficulty in accounting for these 
 deposits. The land, indeed the whole coast, is known 
 to be slowly rising from the sea, and these pans 
 have been, in turn, depressions near the coast, sub- 
 ject to occasional inundations from the ocean. Of 
 course the continued evaporation of such casual 
 additions would cause a great deposit of salt in the 
 bottom of the lake, which would remain long after 
 the time where upheaval had placed them beyond 
 the reach of the sea. Even a large body of salt 
 can be accounted for without supposing any com- 
 munication with the sea after a slight upheaval. 
 There is a large lake, known as Lake Eliza, not very 
 far from Guichen Bay. It has no communication 
 with the ocean, and has once been much deeper 
 than it is at present. It has become evaporated 
 
70 FOSSILIFEROUS LIMESTONE. 
 
 into an immense shallow pan. ‘The water is ex- 
 cessively salt and buoyant. No one can doubt that 
 by the time the whole has evaporated there will 
 be an immense quantity of salt, arising from the 
 large body of sea water which has dried up. 
 
 After having given this much attention to the 
 substances occurring in the rock under considera- 
 tion, let us return to the rock itself. It is, as before 
 observed, of various consistency, sometimes fine 
 grained, and containing no fossils; at other times, 
 exceedingly rich in them. Where there are none, 
 the stone seems to be nearly a hardened lime 
 paste, such as might have been derived from the 
 comminution of small Corallines and Foraminifera. 
 Doubtless an Ehrenberg might discover vestiges of 
 an animal life in them as distinct from the micro- 
 scopic world of Europe as they themselves are from 
 the large fossils by which they are surrounded. 
 Very delicate appliances for microscopic investi- 
 gation were not within my reach, but what has 
 come under notice shall be here specified. It must 
 first be mentioned, some fossils of this deposit were 
 sent home to the Geological Society in 1859. From 
 the dust accompanying some of them, T. Rupert 
 Jones, Esq., F'.G.8., was enabled to procure many 
 Foraminifera. He stated that they were mostly of 
 Pleiocene origin, and showed a sea bottom, which 
 must have been covered with at least between 200 
 and 300 fathoms of water. This, it may be pre- 
 sumed, is only on the supposition that the animals 
 lived where their remains were found, and were not 
 brought from a distance. It will be easy to show 
 
FORAMINIFERA. 71 
 
 hereafter that this supposition cannot be applied 
 here.* For the purpose of searching foraminifera, 
 the finest dust was taken and sifted through muslin. 
 The dust which came through, on being placed 
 under the microscope, appeared full of microscopic 
 fossils. It would be useless for me to attempt any- 
 thing like a classification without any museum to 
 which I could have recourse for the comparison of 
 specimens; it will be sufficient, however, to men- 
 tion, that, though the dust was composed entirely 
 of fossils, they all seemed to belong to D’Orbigny’s 
 order of Monostega, that is, of shells comprised in 
 a single segment or chamber. If there was any ex- 
 ception to this rule, it was in the occurrence of what 
 appeared to me to be a small Cristellaria; there may 
 have been other fossils, but my skill in microscopy 
 was not sufficient to enable me to detect them. 
 With the larger dust which remained after the sift- 
 ing the variety was much greater. In addition to 
 inconceivably small fragments of Bryozoa, almost 
 every variety of Poraminifera might be found; in 
 fact, the stone was a mass of them. They were 
 
 * Since writing the above, the following remarks have been made 
 in the ‘Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society, ’ on the subject of 
 some fossils sent home by me, by Professor T. Rupert Jones, F.G.8.:— 
 “A small portion of this deposit has yielded several Foraminifera, 
 namely, Polymorphina lactea, Textularia pygmea, T. agglutinans, 
 Globigerina bulloides, Cassidulina oblonga, Rosalina Bertholetiana, 
 Rotalaha Ungeriana, Rk. Hardingeri, R. reticulata, R. (Anomalina) 
 rotula (rare—the rest were marked more or less common). The 
 above-named Rhizopods exist at the present day, and, for the most 
 part, in rather deep water, at from 200 to 300 fathoms. It would hence 
 appear that the fragmentary Bryozoa forming the mass of the deposit 
 
 were washed down from a higher zone, and mingled with the Foram?- 
 
 nifera inhabiting deep water.’— Geological Society’s Journal, November 
 1859. 
 
2 FORAMINIFERA. 
 
 opaque, but it seemed to me that the foramina 
 were visible on the surface in the shape of minute 
 granulations. 
 
 The coarser the dust the more numerous the 
 fossils, and the greater the variety. It is impossible 
 to say whether the species were similar to those 
 found in the chalk and other strata elsewhere. It 
 is very probable, that though so great a diversity 
 exists between the fauna of this and other countries, 
 an equal difference does not exist in the micro- 
 scopic animalcules.* The question, however, is 
 one well worth solution. If this book should fall 
 into the hands of any who are willing to pursue this 
 subject, and have the opportunity, they have but to 
 take a piece of Mount Gambier stone and brush it 
 with water. The resulting dust, when dried and 
 sifted, will afford ample material for the examina- 
 tion, and there cannot be a more entertaining 
 employment and amusement than to inspect the 
 innumerable varieties of form which a small frag- 
 ment of stone contains within itself —to trace out 
 the perfect remains of these tiny organisations, and 
 to reflect that Time, which has crumbled the bones 
 of mighty kings, and torn down cities, has spared 
 these atoms, the date of whose existence is so 
 
 * The Foraminifera are the oldest fossils in geology. Some are 
 found specifically identical with those occurring in Paleozoic deposits, 
 and the species found in the Arctic regions, in the Gulf Stream, and 
 in Australia, do not differ from each other. The large Operculina 
 arabica and Globigerina bulloides are the most common at Mount 
 (fambier. They are so large as to be hardly microscopic. See en- 
 gravings, 
 
THE LIBRARY 
 OF THE 
 UNIVERSITY OF JLUINGIS 
 
FOSSIL -BRYOZOA. 
 
 (G+) 
 
 1. Cellepora nummularia, Tusk MS. Mt. Gambier, common, 
 2. Cellepora spongiosa. 
 
 %9 3) 33 
 
 3. Cellepora hemispherica. i +s very common. 
 
 4, Melicerita angustiloba. Busk. a common. 
 
 5, Salicornaria sinuosa. <A. Haszall. a very common, 
 ” I] 
 
 6. Joint of stony axis of Isis. 
 7. Eschara. Very common throughout the whole district. 
 8. Axis of Coral, showing growth by deposition of calcareous matter from outside. 
 
BRYOZOA. 73 
 
 remote, that ‘the twilight of fable’ is butas yes- 
 terday in comparison. 
 
 Besides the /oraminifera, there is also to be men- 
 tioned the minute shells of Hntomostraca Brachio- 
 poda, but, beyond observing them, no attempt was 
 made at their classification; for the rest, the stone 
 is a most strange mixture. It is chiefly composed 
 of minute corals and coralline, but Bryozoas are 
 the most numerous of all; these, being so minute, 
 are crowded together in a very compact manner, 
 and connected by the fine paste just spoken of. 
 
 For the information of my non-scientific readers, 
 I must explain what Bryozoa, called also Polyozoa, 
 means. It comes from the Greek words, {pvoy, 
 moss, and Géov, animal; and is used to signify those 
 polypes which are enclosed in small calcareous or 
 horny sheaths (moss corals), which they sometimes 
 also invest. ‘They differ from true coral in having 
 a more complex organisation, and, though much 
 smaller, the rudiments of a digestive apparatus and 
 nervous system have been discovered in some of 
 them. They also generally possess small vibratile 
 cilia on their tentacles, in all of which particu- 
 lars they are superior to their larger brethren, the 
 true coral. Besides, they are common to all lati- 
 tudes, while the latter are uncommon outside the 
 tropics. It is necessary to bear in mind the 
 distinction between the Bryozoa and true Corals, 
 because it will become evident, as we go on, that 
 there has been an extensive growth in southern 
 Australian seas of the former; and, as this is a 
 
74 FOSSILS OF THE FORMATION. 
 
 ¢ peculiar case, the fact of its differing from a tropical 
 coral reef, in the nature of the animals which built it, 
 will help to explain any anomalies which may arise. 
 
 In addition, there is the true coral—there are 
 many shells, generally small, and more commonly 
 univalves than bivalves. It would be difficult for 
 language to give an idea of how the fossils are 
 associated together. Sometimes the shells are 
 whole, but more frequently only casts, but the 
 Bryozoa are generally intact, and preserved just 
 as they grew. Occasionally, a mere cast of some 
 bivalve shell is found encrusted all over with 
 Flustrade, and then the cast itself is entirely com- 
 posed of small Bryozoa, so ‘felted’ together that 
 it seems like one fossil, comprising within itself 
 the features of many distinct families. Thus a 
 Pecten will abruptly terminate in a Retepora, and 
 
 Pecten. Mt. Gambier. Terebratula conupta. Cellepora gam- 
 Mt. Gambier. bierensis. 
 Mt. Gambier. 
 
 this, again, will pass into the calcareous axis of a 
 Pennatula, which is stopped before it has time to 
 display its fair proportions by the upper valves of 
 a Terebratula, this being dovetailed into a mass of 
 Celleporide, and the small spires of the Spatangus, 
 
FOSSILS OF THE FORMATION. 75 
 
 which everywhere abound. There areno Nummu- 
 lites, or any signs of fossils connected in any way 
 with secondary rocks. 
 
 Spatangus Forbesit. Mount Gambier. 
 
 There are, however, some singular fossils found 
 in the above portion of the district that are worth 
 mentioning. 
 
 Some rocks, not far from Penola, are entirely 
 composed of a small shell not unlike Nummulina, 
 but differing in many respects: they are being con- 
 sidered by persons more competent than myself. 
 This is the only part of the district where they 
 occur. I may state also, that two Lunulites were 
 found—they were both microscopic. The organic 
 remains are not all equally abundant in the same 
 strata; some prevail more in the lower, while others 
 are more common in the upper beds. 
 
 In a place near Mount Gambier, where the 
 falling in of a subterranean hollow (probably 
 eroded by water) has given rise to a deep circu- 
 lar pit, about 100 feet wide and 90 deep, a com- 
 plete section of the strata is exposed as far as the 
 depth goes. It is here seen that, in addition to a 
 
 distinct line of stratification, dividing the rock into 
 
76 FOSSILS OF THE FORMATION. 
 
 layers about fourteen feet thick, there are regular 
 zones where particular fossils are associated. Thus 
 at the first bed (fourteen feet), little is seen but 
 Bryozoa and Terebratule; in ten feet next, less 
 of the moss corals, and more pectens; the next is 
 almost exclusively composed of a pecten common 
 to this formation, with imbricated striae, called 
 Pecten Coarctatus, and a cellepore coral subse- 
 
 Pecten coarctatus (?). Cidaris. 
 Mt. Gambier. Mt. Gambier. 
 
 quently to be described. This state of things is 
 nearly continued to the bottom, where Echini and 
 Reteporsze combine with the general mass. In all 
 the strata, the shells, &c., are cemented together. 
 It is not contended that this arrangement is found 
 
 throughout the district; but fossils are found in 
 
 much the same way at the Mosquito Plains caves 
 (seventy miles distant), where a fine section is 
 exposed to view, and therefore it would seem that 
 the distribution is pretty uniform. A Table of all 
 the fossils hitherto discovered by myself is here 
 appended; but it must be remarked, that the list is 
 far from being intended as complete. Very likely 
 it is but an infinitesimal fragment of what remains 
 to be brought to light; and when it is remembered 
 that all our knowledge of the fauna is derived from 
 some twenty caves, and about five times as many 
 wells that have been sunk in different places, who 
 
 —— 
 
FOSSILS OF THE FORMATION. 77 
 
 can calculate what remains yet to be discovered? 
 In the following list the arrangement adopted by 
 Professor Phillips, in his excellent ‘Manual of 
 Geology’ (Hncyclopedia Metropolitana) has been 
 adhered to :— | 
 
 ORGANIC REMAINS. 
 PLANTS . , é : E . none. 
 
 FORAMINIFERA. 
 Many genera, families, and species, some probably new. 
 
 ZOOPHYTA. 
 No. of Species. 
 Isis : ; 23 é < ee 
 Corals, not classified . ; : aay 
 ECHINOIDEA. 
 Cardiaster 1 
 Cidaris . 2 
 Echinolampus 2 
 Clypeaster 1 
 Spatangus 3 
 Echinus 1 
 
 Echinolampus. Mt, Gambier. 
 
78 FOSSILS OF THE FORMATION. 
 
 Cast of 
 
 Conus. 
 Cast. of Pyrula. 
 Mitra. ined Wy 
 Cast of Turbo (?). 
 ASTEROIDEA. 
 No. of Species. 
 Astropecten : : ‘ Gas! 
 CIRRIPEDIA. 
 Balanus. ; ; 2 ; ae 
 ENTOMOSTRACA. 
 Many species observed of Cypris, Cythera, &c. 
 BRYOZOA.* 
 Salicornaria : , ; : Jie 
 Canda . : . : : ppg | 
 Onchopora : ; ; : Spe) | 
 Membranipora . : : : a: 
 Lepralia : : : 4 
 Cellepora : . : ; ae 
 Eschara , a ; : ‘saan 
 Retepora ; ; . : 4! 
 * Psileschara : ‘ ; ; oa 
 * Coeleschara ‘ ' é ; SF 
 Melicerita ; : “ te 
 Sertularia j p : j rae 
 Pustulipora. ; : ‘ ah? 
 Idmonea ; : : ' vale 
 Hornera. é ; ; a 
 
 and numerous others, belonging probably to entirely 
 new genera; but, as these fossils are the prevailing 
 
 * Those names marked with an asterisk are new genera. 
 
FOSSILS OF THE FORMATION. 79 
 
 ones of the formation, the list is probably inex- 
 haustible. 
 
 BRACHIOPODA. 
 
 No. of Species 
 
 Terebratula F : ; ; ~ 
 
 MONOMYARIA. 
 
 Lima 
 Ostrea 
 Pecten . 
 Pinna 
 
 Ot 
 
 DIMYARIA. 
 
 Arca 
 Astarte . 
 Cardium 
 Pectunculus 
 Panopea 
 Cyrena . 
 Venus 
 
 ee eee oe SO 
 
 GASTEROPODA. 
 
 Ancillaria 
 
 Buecinum 
 
 Bulla 
 
 Cerithium 
 
 Conus 
 
 Dentalium 
 
 Cyprea . 
 
 Fasciolaria 
 
 Fissurella 
 
 Fusus 
 
 Hyponyx 
 
 Littorina 
 
 Melania. 
 
 Mitra 
 
 Murex 
 
 Nerita 
 
 Oliva 
 
 Pyramidella. : : ‘ . 
 Pyrula . . . : : : 
 Trochus , : . . many species. 
 Turbo . ; ‘ ‘ , many species. 
 
 Oe Oe eee On 
 
80 FOSSILS OF THE FORMATION. 
 
 No. of Species 
 
 Tuwrritella ; : : 2 many species. 
 Voluta . : > . : many species. 
 CEPHALOPODA. 
 Nautilus ; , ; : wee 
 PISCES. 
 
 Many teeth, the most common of which appear 
 to belong to a species of Oxyrrhinus, which Prof. 
 
 Teeth of Shark. Oxyrrhinus Woodsiz. 
 (M‘Coy, M.S.) Mt. Gambier. 
 
 These are natural size, but many are found four times larger. 
 M‘Coy has called Oxyrrhinus Woodsii. Some of 
 them seem to be those of a Lamna. No fish-bones 
 were found. | 
 
 Aves, Mammalia, Marsupialia, Insectivora, Chei- 
 roptera, and Quadrumana, have none of them, if 
 existing in this district when the beds were 
 deposited, left any traces that have yet come to 
 light. Of Cetacea, some bones have been found at 
 various times, but have never been examined by 
 the author. The Murray banks seem to be the 
 commonest locality for these remains. With re- 
 gard to Marsupialia, although instances will be 
 hereafter given of such bones being discovered, 
 they have never been deposited in the limestone 
 
FOSSILS OF THE FORMATION. 8] 
 
 and associated with marine remains. The instances 
 alluded to are generally in connection with caves. 
 
 In addition to the list just given, fossils were 
 found which would not properly come under any 
 of the above headings ; such, for instance, as ex- 
 tensive beds of spines of Lchinide, amongst which 
 the spines of a Cidaris are so large and _ highly 
 tuberculated as to seem like distinct shells, while 
 the form of others is so peculiar as to earn for 
 them the ludicrous title of ‘fossil cribbage-pegs,’ 
 which, indeed, they are not unlike. 
 
 Spine of Cidaris. Mount Gambier. 
 
 Some remains of crabs’ claws, which are not 
 unfrequently met with, have not been included in 
 the above list, simply because they were so imper- 
 fect as to render any classification very difficult and 
 uncertain. Long strips of hardened lime, which 
 probably belonged to the calcareous ages of Penna- 
 tulide, are also common. Some fragments of sea- 
 weed were said to have been found in the northern 
 part of the district, but the specimens were lost, and 
 their true nature is consequently very doubtful. 
 
 In nearly every case, the lime in the shelly por- 
 tions of the fossils is crystallised, and fractures 
 always in the crystalline form, leaving a smooth 
 even edge. ‘The lime inside is never crystallised. 
 This phenomenon, which is common to many for- 
 
 mations in Europe, is worthy of more consideration 
 G 
 
82 FOSSILS OF THE BEDS. 
 
 than it has received. Can it be that the decompo- 
 sition in the animal matter in the shell causes a 
 chemical arrangement of the other particles con- 
 nected with it, by a sort of predisposing affinity? 
 instances like this are not uncommon in chemistry. 
 
 -Before comparing this list with the fauna of 
 other parts of this and the neighbouring colony, 
 where fossils are found, let us stop to examine the 
 nature of the evidence they furnish. In the first 
 place, the beds are tertiary. This is seen from the 
 fact that some of the fossils are of existing species, 
 and from the general resemblance of the fauna to 
 what is now found on the coast. Secondly, the 
 formations are most probably of the Lower Crag 
 or Middle Crag; but this will require some little 
 explanation. Most readers are probably aware that 
 the tertiary or newest fossiliferous rocks have been 
 divided into three great periods. The Pleiocene is 
 most recent in the species of shells it possesses; the 
 Meiocene is less recent; and the Eocene, or dawn of 
 the recent, the earliest. The grounds of this division 
 are found, as the names imply, in a greater or less 
 predominance of existing forms, among the fossils 
 enclosed. In the beds now under consideration, there 
 can be no question that a number of the shells still 
 exist on the coast, but not by any means in propor- 
 tion to the past; Pleiocene is sometimes found above 
 them, in which extinct species are rare. On compar- 
 ing the fauna in the few instances where any likeness 
 exists with shells found in Europe, they are found 
 to be most commonly similar to Lower Meiocene and 
 
FOSSILS OF THE BEDS. 83 
 
 Upper Eocene fossils. Thus, the Nautilus ziczac 
 is found in Upper Eocene at home, but sometimes 
 
 SHH=ze 
 
 Nautilus ziczac. Mount Gambier. 
 
 goes as low as the London Clay, in which are also 
 found the Astro-Pecten, the Spatangus Porbesu, and 
 
 Spatangus Forbesii. Cast of Murex asper. Lam. 
 Mount Gambier. Turritella Mount Gambier. 
 terebralis. 
 Mount Gambier, 
 
 the Cyprea oviformis, common to this formation. 
 
 The most predominant shell found at Mount Gam- 
 
 bier is the Nautilus ziczac, and on the Murray 
 
 the commonest shell is the Turritella terebralis, 
 
 common in the Meiocene beds, Bordeaux. Of 
 
 course, in dealing with any tertiary rocks, it is dif- 
 G2 
 
84 FOSSILS OF THE FORMATION. 
 
 ficult to say what shells have become extinct, and 
 what may yet be found in future exploration, so 
 that those which are common in the Eocene beds 
 might just possibly be found in Pleiocene beds, 
 and thus deposits so widely separated be found 
 similar in some respects. As an instance, it may 
 be mentioned that the Murex asper, Lamark 
 (Upper Eocene, Barton clay, Hants), has been found 
 by myself, at least, as a common shell on some 
 parts of the Australian coast. Now, Prof. Rupert 
 Jones informs me that the microscopic fossils are 
 not indicative of anything more ancient than 
 Pleiocene. If this be the case, we must regard the 
 occurrence of the fossils enumerated above as con- 
 tinuations of animal life here, which were extinct 
 elsewhere. Some deductions will hereafter be 
 made from the general nature of the strata, and 
 the occurrence of Eocene fossils in Pleiocene rocks, 
 while some, even from a portion of our present 
 fauna, are singularly corroborative of the view 
 taken. But this is anticipating. , 
 
 The following report of Dr. Busk on some fossils 
 of the formation seen by him, will show how far the 
 position of the beds has been determined as yet :— 
 
 ‘The Polyzoa included in this collection belong 
 to fifteen or sixteen genera, of which four are pro- 
 bably new; and the number of species is about 
 thirty-nine or forty, of which at least thirty-six 
 seem to be undescribed. Among them are several 
 very peculiar and characteristic forms, especially 
 in the genus Cellepora. Taken as a whole, these 
 fossil forms exhibit such genuine and specific types 
 
AGE OF THE BEDS. 85 
 
 as to render it probable that the formation in which 
 they are found corresponds, in point of relation, to 
 the existing state of things with the lower crag of 
 England, although the collection contains only one 
 or two species, and that even doubtfully, to any 
 belonging to the crag. 
 
 ‘Tt is remarkable, however, that it presents a 
 second species of Melicerita, which genus is peculiar 
 to that deposit. Of the characteristic Pascicularie 
 and other Theonide of the crag, no trace exists in 
 the present collection. ‘The most remarkable form 
 
 Cellepora gambierensis. Busk. 
 Mount Gambier. : 
 
 is a large and massive Cellepora, for which I pro- 
 pose the name Cellepora gambierensis.’ 
 
 It appears to me almost certain that eventually 
 future investigations will identify these deposits 
 
86 AGE OF THE BEDS. 
 
 with the Crag, and therefore it will be as well here 
 to mention the features of that deposit at home. 
 
 The word ‘ crag’ is supposed to be derived from 
 an ancient British word, meaning rock, and the 
 term is therefore a provincial one. The beds are 
 best known by those in Suffolk, where they are 
 divided into the upper and lower crag. The upper 
 is a loose shelly deposit, seeming like a shifting 
 sandbank, whose description is exactly similar to 
 a deposit to be noticed by and by, which imme- 
 diately overlies a portion of the Mount Gambier 
 limestone; the lower is a soft coralline limestone, 
 precisely similar to what I have described as the 
 rock at Mount Gambier. I believe this deposit and 
 the chalk have always been regarded as the two 
 which are richest in Bryozoa, and wherever it 
 occurs it has merited the name of coralline lime- 
 stone, from its peculiar richness in those remains. 
 It has been remarked, also, that these remains in- 
 dicate a peculiar state of the sea at the time, which 
 is not accounted for by anything we observe at 
 present going on about us. When this is remem- 
 bered in connection with the peculiar origin of the 
 beds of which I am now about to treat, it will 
 be admitted that there is a similarity, even if no 
 shells were there — that is, noshells common to 
 both. 
 
 The crag deposits have been traced at home, to 
 Antwerp, Normandy, the Apennines, and to many 
 parts of Italy, not even excepting Rome. When 
 these beds are proved to be identical, as doubtless 
 they will shortly be, by the discovery of many 
 
AGE OF THE BEDS. 87 
 
 similar fossils, it will be established that the sea 
 which formed the strata upon which Mount Gam- 
 bier, and even Adelaide, stand, was also rolling 
 over the site of Rome—not ancient Rome, but 
 Rome then unborn. When we look back on the 
 history of that country, and think of the period 
 before its upheaval from the sea, we can guess how 
 modern these beds of Mount Gambier are. That 
 the sea covered both simultaneously does not admit 
 of much doubt. | 
 
 I am almost ashamed to quote so largely ina 
 small work like the present, but, as illustrative of 
 what I have been describing, I cannot help trans- 
 eribing from Sir Charles Lyell’s invaluable manual 
 the passage referring to the Pleiocene strata of 
 Rome :— 
 
 ‘The seven hills of Rome are composed partly 
 of marine tertiary strata; those of Monte Mario, 
 for example, of the older Pleiocene period, and 
 partly of superimposed volcanic tuff, on the top of 
 which are usually cappings of a fluviatile and 
 lacustrine deposit. ‘Thus on Mount Aventine, the 
 Vatican, and the Capitol, we find beds of calca- 
 reous tufa, with incrusted reeds and recent terres- 
 trial shells, at the height of about 200 feet above 
 the alluvial plain of the Tiber. The tusk of the 
 mammoth has been procured from this formation, 
 but the shells appear to be all of living species, and 
 must have been embedded when the summit of the 
 Capitol was a marsh, and constituted one of the 
 lowest hollows of the country as it then existed. 
 It is not without interest that we thus discover the 
 
88 , AGE OF THE BEDS. 
 
 extremely recent date of a geological event which 
 preceded an historical era so remote as the building 
 of Rome.’* 
 
 The deposit is further traced into Asia Minor 
 and on the shores of the Caspian Sea. It is cer- 
 tainly very interesting to find in what manner 
 Australia is geologically connected with the older 
 hemisphere, and especially to find that we are re- 
 lated by very close ties of time with such distin- 
 guished ancients as Rome and Asia Minor. There is 
 one important difficulty in tracing the resemblance, 
 which has yet, in great part, to be overcome. Pro- 
 bably not a dozen fossils will be found common 
 to both formations; but, inasmuch as the fauna of 
 our present seas differ almost totally from those of 
 Europe, so we must expect a similar divergence 
 for the time when the crag was deposited: The 
 problem to be solved will therefore stand thus: 
 Knowing the present analogies between the Aus- 
 tralian and European seas, what might we antici- 
 pate from the Australian crag, knowing the fauna 
 of that of Europe? 
 
 It might be further remarked, that the discovery 
 of extensive beds of coralline, all belonging to one 
 period, might enable us to establish an epoch of 
 Bryozoa, just as there is an epoch of carbonaceous 
 flora, an epoch of gigantic reptiles, or an anomalous 
 period like the chalk, which seem, each in their turn, 
 to have stamped a character on every part of the 
 world during their continuance. 
 
 * Lyell’s Manual of Geology, 5th ed., p. 176. 
 
AGE OF THE BEDS. 89 
 
 From the general appearance of the strata, it 
 may be concluded that they were deposited in a 
 deep tranquil sea; that the débris of which they 
 were composed was derived from a series of coral- 
 line reefs, which either at present form a part of 
 them, or somewhere in their vicinity; and, thirdly, 
 that the climate was somewhat warmer than that 
 which obtains at the present time in the same area. 
 The inference with regard to the depth of the sea 
 has been drawn from the nature of the fossils, which 
 are generally indicative of considerable depths. At 
 least, it will be proved just now that the animals did 
 not exist where their fossil remains are now found. 
 Then there are no river or land shells, or bones of 
 mammalia, or trees, or wood, such as we might 
 expect if land were near. Very few of the Zoophytes 
 belonging to the fossils appear to have lived and 
 died in the places where their remains are found. 
 It would appear as if they had been brought from 
 a distance, and that the carriage has been effected 
 not so much by the force of a current as by the 
 gradual spreading out upon the bottom of the 
 ocean, either by the force of gravity, or the pres- 
 sure of detritus from the shallower sea. It is true 
 that, as will be hereafter shown, corallines (very 
 similar to corals) are sometimes found in the posi- 
 tion in which they have grown, proving the com- 
 parative shallowness of the sea, which was per- 
 haps not more than thirty fathoms, which is the 
 greatest depth at which live corals have been found. 
 Yet such instances are not common, and it is very 
 
90 PROBABLE MANNER OF DEPOSITION. 
 
 probable that the detritus from these and similar 
 places have given rise to the marine exuviee now 
 embedded in the stone. In such places, again, the 
 shells are nearly always preserved, are more nu- 
 merous, and the beds contain less of that limestone 
 which unite the other rocks; while elsewhere the 
 shells are fewer, more broken, and oftener only 
 casts remain. 7 
 The regularity of the strata, and the dim traces 
 of stratification, point to a very tranquil sea, which, 
 cf course, could only be obtained at some depth; 
 and where portions of shells are found, or pieces of 
 fish-bone, teeth, &c., the remaining fragments are 
 seldom discovered in the immediate vicinity, thus 
 proving a transit from the original place of depo- 
 sition which has separated the remains tranquilly 
 and without much breakage. If I were asked to 
 indicate localities which would be good types of 
 where the process of slow shifting has taken place, 
 I should point out the rock about Mount Gambier, 
 where, of all the fossils found, not one animal ap- 
 pears to have died in the place where the remains 
 are now found. ‘The coral before alluded to is very 
 common here, but always broken, and appearing to 
 have come from a distance. On the other.hand, 
 the only place I am as yet acquainted with where 
 the fossils do not appear to have been transported 
 any distance, is at the cliffs in the caves at Mos- 
 quito Plains. 
 The mention of these brings me to the proof of 
 the third statement, namely, that the whole of the 
 
CORALLINE REEFS. 91 
 
 formation is derived from a series of coralline reefs, 
 perhaps now forming part of the beds. In the 
 first place, the most common fossil in the whole 
 formation, whether at the extreme south or far 
 north of the district, is the Cellepora gambierenssi, 
 
 Branching Axis of Cellepora gambierensis. 
 Mount Cambier. 
 before mentioned. It is found at all depths and 
 in every place where the beds occur, at Mount 
 Gambier, in the caves at Mosquito Plains, at the 
 edge of the Mallee Scrub, and in the Murray 
 Cliffs. Most frequently it is in small pieces, but 
 occasionally large and branched. Often it is so 
 worn and broken as to be barely traceable in 
 the limestone cement, and I have noticed it even 
 in the centre of flints. At the caves, Mosquito 
 Plains, it appears as if it had grown where it is 
 seen in the walls. It is very large and much 
 ramified; not, certainly, possessing the beauty of 
 the delicate Maandrina (brain coral), or the leaf- 
 like expansion of the Pavonia, but, nevertheless, 
 having a natural beauty of its own, all the better 
 for a close examination, where evidence is obtained 
 
92 CORALLINE REEFS. 
 
 of the minute kind of molluscous animal which 
 inhabited it. This is the only coralline which 
 seems to affect the large massive branches of 
 the true corals, forming a connecting link with 
 that order. It is made up of closely-packed con- 
 geries of minute cells, which opened outward, 
 in pores, as seen in the engraving in this chapter, 
 where a magnified portion of the surface is given. 
 The cells seem to have grown from within out- 
 wards, and the inside of the branches is hollow. 
 A section is much like very fine yellow sponge. 
 It might easily have formed a reef. 
 
 Besides the actual presence of the coralline to 
 point out the origin of the strata, their very 
 texture, if the term be admissible, proves the nature 
 of the process which formed them, which appears 
 from the following observations. 
 
 Lieutenant Nelson* states that the mud de- 
 rived from coral reefs differs not, when dried, 
 from the ordinary white chalk of Europe, and ‘this 
 mud is carried to great distances by currents, 
 and spread far and wide over the floor of the 
 ocean.’ 
 
 It seems quite natural to suppose that this would 
 be the case, from the heavy beating of the open 
 sea upon coral reefs. This not only breaks up the 
 coral, but carries it far away, in the form of white 
 mud, with small fragments of coralline shells, &c., 
 interspersed. In the lagoons found in the centre 
 of Atolls, or Ring Islands, such as abound in the 
 
 * Quarterly Journal of Geological Society, 1853, p. 200. 
 
CORALLINE REEFS. 93 
 
 Pacific, the same description of white mud is met 
 with; that of Keeling Island is thus described by 
 Mr. Darwin : *— 
 
 ‘The sediment from the deepest parts of the 
 lagoon, when wet, appears chalky, but, when dry, like 
 very fine sand. Large soft banks of similar but 
 even finer-grained mud occur on the SE. shore of 
 the lagoon, affording a thick growth of a Fucus, 
 on which turtle feed. This mud, although disco- 
 loured by vegetable matter, appears, from its entire 
 solution in acids, to be purely calcareous. I have 
 seen in the Museum of the Geological Society a 
 similar but more remarkable substance brought 
 by Lieutenant Nelson from the reefs of Bermuda, 
 which, when shown to several experienced geolo- 
 gists, was mistaken by them for true chalk. On 
 the outside of the reef much sediment must be 
 formed by the action of the surf on the rolled frag- 
 ments of coral, but in the calm waters of the 
 lagoon this can take place only in a small degree. 
 There are, however, other and unexpected agents 
 at work here: large shoals of two species of [carus, 
 one inhabiting the surf outside the reef, and the 
 other the lagoon, subsist entirely, as I was assured 
 by Mr. Liesk, the intelligent resident before re- 
 ferred to, by browsing the living polypifers. I 
 opened several of these fish, which are very nume- 
 
 *T cannot let this opportunity pass without expressing my great 
 obligations to Mr. Darwin’s valuable work on coral reefs. Its merits 
 cannot be too highly estimated, and to any one studying the geology 
 
 of such deposits as those of Mount Gambier, it is an indispensable 
 text-book. 
 
94 CORALLINE REEFS. 
 
 rous and of considerable size, and I found their 
 intestines distended by small pieces of coral and 
 finely-ground calcareous matter. This must daily 
 pass from them as the finest sediment; much also 
 must be produced by the infinitely numerous ver- 
 miform and molluscous animals which make cavities 
 in almost every block. of coral.’ 
 
 As we are upon this subject, it is hoped it will 
 not be deemed tedious to insert, for the information 
 of those unacquainted with coral reefs, a description 
 of one, a proper notion of them being indispen- 
 sable to a comprehension of this chapter. 
 
 The following is taken from the voyage of H.M.S. 
 fly to the Eastern Archipelago.* <A coral reef is 
 thus described :— 
 
 ‘A submarine mound of rock, composed of the 
 fragments and detritus of corals and shells com- 
 pacted together into a soft spongy stone. — The 
 ereater part of the surface of this mound is quite 
 flat, and near the level of low water. At its edges it 
 is commonly a little rounded off, or slopes gradu- 
 ally down to a depth of two, three, and four fathoms, 
 and then pitches suddenly down, with a very rapid 
 slope, into deep water 20 or 200 fathoms, as the case 
 may be. The surface of this reef, when exposed, looks 
 like.a great flat of sandstone with a few loose slabs 
 lying about, or here and there an accumulation of 
 dead broken coral branches, or a bank of dazzling 
 white sand. It is, however, chequered with holes 
 and hollows more or less deep, in which small 
 
 * London: Boone, 1°47. 
 
DSSCRIPTION OF CORAL REEFS. 95 
 
 living corals are growing, or has, perhaps, a large 
 portion that is always covered by two or three feet 
 of water at the lowest tides, and here are fields of 
 corals, either clumps of branching Madrepores, or 
 round stools and blocks of Meandrina and Astrea, 
 both dead and living. Proceeding from this central 
 flat towards the edge, living corals become more 
 and more abundant. 
 
 ‘As we get towards the windward side, we of 
 course encounter the surf of breakers long before 
 we can reach the extreme verge of the reef, and 
 among these breakers we see immense blocks, often 
 two or three yards (and sometimes much more) in 
 diameter, lying loose upon the reef. These are 
 sometimes within reach by a little wading, and 
 though, in some instances, they are found to consist 
 of several kinds of corals matted together, they are 
 more often found to be large individual masses of 
 species which are either not found elsewhere, and, 
 consequently, never seen alive, or which greatly 
 surpass their brethren on other parts of the reef in 
 size and importance. If we approach the lee edge 
 of the reef, either by walking or in a boat, we find 
 it covered with living corals, commonly Mwandrina, 
 . Astrea, and Madrepora, in about equal abun- 
 dance, all glowing with rich colours, bristling with 
 branches, or studded with great knobs and blocks. 
 
 ‘When the edge of the reef is very steep, it has 
 sometimes overhanging ledges, and is generally 
 indented by narrow winding channels and deep 
 holes leading into dark hollows and cavities, where 
 
96 DESCRIPTION OF CORAL REEFS. 
 
 nothing can be seen. When the slope is more 
 gentle, the great groups of living corals and inter- 
 vening spaces of white sand can be still discerned 
 through the clear water to a depth of forty or fifty 
 feet, beyond which the water recovers its usual deep 
 blue. A coral reef, therefore, is a mass of brute 
 matter, living only at.its outer surface, and chiefly 
 on its lateral slopes.’ 
 
 This description must be varied for the-majority 
 of atolls. ‘The outer edge is a bank of calcareous 
 sand, raised a few feet above the highest tides. This 
 is sometimes covered with a few shrubs and palm 
 trees. Inside the bank of sand which forms a ring 
 there is a lagoon, the bottom of which is covered 
 with a chalky mud just spoken of. It has been very 
 nearly proved that the chalk of England and France 
 owes its origin toa somewhat similar “process; and 
 from the similarity of the strata in both cases (for 
 really the cliffs at Mount Gambier can scarcely be 
 more like the chalk cliffs), all the arguments which 
 tend to support such a view will serve equally well 
 here. 
 
 They principally rest on the fact, that, where 
 coral reefs are at present in existence, a deposit 
 analogous to the chalk is in course of formation, 
 and that where chalk beds are found it is always 
 associated with such fossils and exuviee as might be 
 looked for from a coral reef. 3 
 
 Let it be remarked, that the quantity of true 
 corals which have been found in the Mount Gambier 
 strata is admitted to be comparatively small, yet the 
 
SIMILARITY OF LIMESTONE TO CORAL ROCK. 97 
 
 same thing might be urged against the chalk at 
 home. 
 
 There, as here, the Bryozoa are in excess, and 
 probably there, as here, the latter formed the reefs. 
 Such a thing is never observed now, but I am con- 
 fident it must have been the case here in the 
 geological period to which they belong. As just 
 related, there is a fine section of the beds at the 
 caves at Mosquito Plains. 
 
 There is little else in that place but the Celle- 
 pora gambierensis, common to the formation. It 
 stands exactly as it grew, large branches dividing 
 again and again, as they ascend, until at the top of 
 the cave their arborescent ramifications are spread 
 out like a shrubbery turned to stone. Now, al- 
 though the Cellepora is not a true coral, it might 
 easily form part of a reef when growing as related, 
 and there cannot be much doubt that this particular 
 instance was in actual connection with one. It may 
 therefore be enumerated, that there may be reefs 
 of ‘moss coral,’ Bryozoa, as well as of true coral, 
 and the Mount Gambier deposit was derived, pro- 
 bably, from the former. 
 
 What other fauna may we expect besides corals 
 and moss corals in a reef ? If we consult the works 
 of those who have made such places their study, 
 we shall find that Pectens, Ostreew, Conide, Cy- 
 pride, Sharks, Echini, and Bryozoa generally, are 
 everywhere associated with reefs. For these facts, 
 see Darwin, Beechy, Chamisso, Moresby and 
 Jukes, passim. leaders now have only to refer 
 
 H 
 
98 CORALLINE REEFS. 
 
 back to the part of this chapter which mentions 
 the fossils of the beds, and they will at once see the 
 correspondence with the faune of a coral reef. It 
 may, then, be stated, without taking anything for 
 eranted, that the deposit in question has arisen 
 from a reef, or series of reefs, now, perhaps, en- 
 tombed in the general débris, perhaps in some parts 
 of the strata not yet known. 
 
 It will be necessary to postpone any enquiries as 
 to the nature of the reef —whether a barrier or a 
 series of atolls, or what other kind or kinds of reefs. 
 The marked boundaries of the formation have been 
 described, at least, as far as they are at present 
 known. In the mean time, we may pass to the con- 
 sideration of another fact, before spoken of, namely, 
 that the organic remains indicate a much warmer 
 climate than that which obtains at present. Some 
 little explanation may be further necessary as to 
 the natural history of the builders of the reefs, to 
 prevent any misconception of what is meant to be 
 conveyed by the term ‘ coral.’ | 
 
 It is well known that true coral reefs at present 
 do not extend much beyond the tropics, either in 
 a northerly or southerly direction, except at the 
 Bermudas, where local circumstances of tempera- 
 ture (the Gulf Stream) account for the exception. 
 It is not pretended, even now, that there was any 
 variation from the law during the crag period. A 
 coral reef, properly speaking, is a mass of calcareous 
 polypodoms, formed by living polypi. Such a defi- 
 nition would exclude our reef, at least as far as the 
 
EVIDENCE OF FORMER HIGHER TEMPERATURE. 99 
 
 fossils are known, because the animal which raised . 
 the barrier was of a much higher organisation than 
 a polypus or real coral animal, and such an one as 
 is even now found outside the tropics. It is a 
 molluscous animal, which is most common in our 
 beds, belonging to the sub-kingdom Nematoneura, 
 and associated with such divisions as Lchinoder- 
 mata, such as star-fish, &c., whereas the true corals 
 belong to the sub-kingdom Acrvta, and are associated 
 with the Porifera or sponges, the Acalephe or jelly- 
 fish, &c. The higher developement of the Bryozoa 
 might, perhaps, enable them to withstand a colder 
 temperature. At any rate, this isnot the only in- 
 stance of fossils indicating something analogous to 
 a coral reef being found outside the tropics. The 
 chalk formation extends beyond the 55th parallel of 
 north latitude, while, in the case under considera- 
 tion, it does not certainly extend beyond 42° south. 
 I do not believe, however, that the same animal would 
 exist now, even at the latitude of Mount Gambier* 
 (about 37° 30’ south), and, therefore, a warmer 
 temperature must be supposed than that which is 
 consistent with the present physical geography of 
 Australia. This is borne out by the fauna. Conida, 
 Cypride, and Nautilide are not found now of the 
 same size upon the coast, except much nearer to 
 the tropics. 
 
 And now we come to the important question, 
 How far does the formation extend? It may be 
 
 * My reasons for this belief are taken from the present fauna of that 
 part of the coast. 
 
 H 2 
 
100 EXTENT OF THE FORMATION. 
 
 necessary to go somewhat extremely into detail for 
 a proof of what is certainly a very extraordinary 
 fact, probably not a solitary one, in the geological 
 history of the tertiary formation, and although this 
 work only professes to record geological observa- 
 tions in South Australia, yet, in this instance, it 
 will be led somewhat beyond these limits. 
 
 It may be premised that a large area, covered 
 by one formation, is by no means new in geology. 
 When it is stated that probably one-sixth of Aus- 
 tralia is covered by the one now described, its ex- 
 tent may surprise us. The chalk formation of 
 Europe has, however, been traced 1,140 geographi- 
 cal miles in one direction, and 840 miles in another. 
 The one we are now occupied with is not so large as 
 this, though it is of great size; but, as many of the 
 facts in support of this view do not amount to 
 decisive evidence, their separate value must be 
 shown as we proceed step by step ;—this will be the 
 subject of the next chapter. Before passing to 
 it, let us consider for one moment the magnitude 
 of the operations we have just cursorily surveyed. 
 The sight of an atoll standing alone amid the sur- 
 gings of a vast ocean, with no other guarantee 
 against being swept away by some great billow than 
 the protection of the tiny world which raised the 
 structure, may well surprise us; but here the 
 labours of a similar creature are as marvellous. 
 An immense territory, much larger than Great 
 Britain, owes its soil, its foundation, and hereafter 
 will owe its edifices and monuments, to fragile 
 
EXTENT OF THE FORMATION. 101 
 
 corallines, of which we tread a million under our 
 feet in our sea-side rambles, and whose only appeal 
 against destruction is being so very small and yet 
 so very beautiful. They raised a structure which 
 withstood the waves, and now— 
 
 ‘Pulvere vix tectz poterunt monstrare ruine.’—Lucan. 
 
 It seems as though the order of nature were re- 
 versed, and that weakness had power to com- 
 plete what strength had never power to attempt; 
 that while the monuments of giants perish, the 
 gigantic monuments raised by atoms remain for 
 ever. Well may we here quote the beautiful lines 
 from Montgomery’s ‘ Pelican Island :-— 
 
 ‘JT saw the living pile ascend, 
 The mausoleum of its architects : 
 Still sloping upwards as their labours closed — 
 Slime the materials, but the slime was turned 
 To adamant by their petrific touch. 
 Frail were their frames; ephemeral their lives; 
 Their masonry imperishable. All 
 Life’s needful functions, food, exertion, rest, 
 By nice economy of Providence, 
 Were overruled to carry on the process, 
 Which out of water brought forth solid rock. 
 Atom by atom, thus the burden grew — 
 A Coral Island, stretching east and west. 
 Steep were the flanks, with precipices sharp, 
 Descending to their base in ocean gloom, 
 Chasms, few, and narrow, and irregular, 
 Formed harbours safe at once and perilous— 
 Safe for defence, but perilous to enter ; 
 A sea-lake shone, amidst the fossil isle, 
 Reflecting in a ring its cliffs and caverns, 
 With heaven itself, seen like a lake below. 
 Compared with this amazing edifice, 
 Raised by the feeblest creatures in existence, 
 
ai 7 
 
 CORAL ISLANDS. 
 
 What are the works of intellectual man, 
 
 Towers, temples, palaces, and sepulchres ? 
 
 Dust in the balance, atoms in the gale, 
 Compared with these achievements in the deep, 
 Were all the monuments of olden time. 
 
 Kgypt’s grey piles of hieroglyphic grandeur, 
 That have survived the language which they speak, 
 Preserving its dead emblems to the eye, 
 
 Yet hiding from the mind what these reveal — 
 Her pyramids would be mere pinnacles, 
 
 Her giant statues, wrought from rocks of granite, 
 But puny ornaments for such a pile 
 
 As this stupendous mound of catacombs, 
 
 Filled with dry mummies of the builder-worms!’ 
 
asp 
 
 103 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 AN UNFINISHED CONTINENT. 
 
 EXTENT OF THE FORMATION. — MURRAY CLIFFS. — STURT’S 
 LIST OF FOSSILS. —- DESCRIPTION OF THE CLIFFS.—— EXTENT 
 OF THE FORMATION IN A WESTERLY DIRECTION. — STURT’S 
 ACCOUNT OF THE FORMATION TO THE NORTH. — FLINDERS’ 
 DESCRIPTION OF THE SOUTH. — OTHER OBSERVATIONS. — 
 BOUNDARIES TO THE EASTWARD. — TASMANIA. — ORIGIN OF 
 THE FORMATION. —-SHOWING SUBSIDENCE OF A LARGE AREA. 
 — DARWIN'S THEORY. —APPLICATION OF THIS TO THE MOUNT 
 GAMBIER BEDS. — OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. — WHY NO REMAINS 
 OF ATOLLS ARE FOUND. -—— PROBABLY SOME- REMAINS AT 
 SWEDES FLAT.— PROBABLE TEMPERATURE OF THE SEA. — 
 GEOLOGICAL PERIOD.— ANALOGIES IN THE PRESENT STATE 
 OF THE EARTH’S CRUST WITH FORMER GEOLOGICAL EPOCHS. — 
 ANALOGY OF AUSTRALIA TO THE CHALK.— RETARDED STATE 
 OF ITS ZOOLOGY. — BAD ADAPTABILITY AS A RESIDENCE FOR 
 MAN. — CONCLUDING REMARKS. ’ 
 
 T will be remembered that the district to which 
 this book refers is bounded on the north and 
 west by the river Murray, and on the west to the 
 south by the sea, containing an area of about 
 22,000 square miles. Now, all this immense tract 
 of land is, as before stated, occupied by the same 
 formation, with one or two exceptions. Of this, 
 as far as the Mallee Scrub, and even somewhat be- 
 yond it, we have proof positive. Wherever cliffs 
 are seen or wells sunk, the characteristic shells 
 
104 BOUNDARIES OF THE FORMATION. 
 
 and corals appear. A large space, of which we know 
 little, intervenes between the commencement of the 
 scrub and the river, and then fossiliferous cliffs of 
 yellowish limestone line each side of the stream. 
 As there are no elevations of any importance 
 known in the scrub, and as the soil seems to pre- 
 serve the same character throughout which is seen 
 in the commencement, it is no very great stretch 
 of hypothesis to believe that the formation is con- 
 tinuous, that is, if the cliffs on the Murray are of 
 the same nature. But there can be but little doubt 
 of this. 
 
 When Captain Sturt first traced down the 
 Murray from the Murrumbidgee in 1829, he came 
 suddenly to a part of the river somewhat eastward 
 of the present boundary of South Australia, where 
 it was bounded on each side by high limestone 
 cliffs, through which the stream seemed to have 
 worn a bed. These continued right down to the 
 sea mouth, and even then seemed to be prolonged 
 along the coast to the south-east. By referring 
 to a map, readers will see that the river, amid 
 various windings, generally preserves a south and 
 westerly course, until where it suddenly takes a 
 bend, and then continues south to the sea.. This 
 direction of the river is just such as must cut 
 through any intervening strata of a different nature, 
 if there wereany. But thisis not the case. On the 
 contrary, the whole seems to be of the same de- 
 scription of rock. From the following list of fossils, 
 engraved or described by Captain Sturt, the iden- 
 
STURT’S LIST. 105 
 
 tity of the fauna will at once be seen when com- 
 pared with the list already given. 
 
 The catalogue was compiled in 1832; of course 
 due allowance must be made for the nomenclature, 
 in consequence. It may be remarked, that the 
 plates in the work in which this list occurs show 
 some of the species to be identical with some in my 
 possession. Thus, what he terms the Spatangus 
 Hoffmanni is the S. Forbesit ; the Glauconome is 
 the Salicornaria; the Eschara celleporacea is the 
 Cellepora gambierensis, common to the whole for- 
 mation. But, to facilitate the comparison, those 
 fossils found at Mount Gambier are marked with 
 an asterisk :— 
 
 TUNICATA. 
 
 (The classification is left as it stands in Sturt’s work.) 
 
 * Kachara celleporacea. 
 
 aa pisiformis, 
 unnamed. 
 * Cellepora echinata. 
 A escharoides, 
 * Retepora disticha, 
 i silicata. 
 
 * Glauconome rhombifera. 
 All tertiary in Westphalia and England. 
 
 RADIATA, 
 
 Scutella. 
 
 * Spatangus Hoffmanni G'oldfuss. 
 Tertiary in Westphalia. 
 
 *BKchinus. 
 
 CONCHIFERA: BIVALVED SHELLS. 
 
 Corbula gallica, Paris Basin, tertiary. 
 Tellina. 
 Corbis lamellosa, tertiary, Paris. 
 
106 THE MURRAY BEDS. 
 
 ~ Lucina. 
 
 * Venus (Cytherea) levigata, Paris. 
 
 4 obliqua, ibid. 
 Venus. 
 Cardium? fragments. 
 Nucula, such as are found in London clay. 
 * Pecten coarctatus, Placentia. 
 * 4) ~ Various, recent. 
 
 9» | Species unknown. 
 
 Two other Pectens also occur. 
 
 * Ostrea elongata, Deshayes. 
 * Terebratula. 
 One cast, genus unknown, perhaps a Cardium. 
 
 MOLLUSCA: UNIVALVED SHELLS. 
 
 Bulla. 
 Natica, small. 
 
 »» _ large species. 
 Dentalium. 
 Trochus. 
 Turritella. 
 
 ) in gyps. 
 Murex. 
 Bucecinum. 
 Mitra. 
 
 yy very short. 
 Cypreea. 
 
 Conus. 
 
 This list would present a still greater resem- 
 blance to that of Mount Gambier, were I able to 
 avail myself of the numerous collections that have 
 been since made of that locality. That the de- 
 posits are identical, | have no doubt. It is. true 
 that the limestone is of a yellowish colour, while 
 at Mount Gambier it is brilliant white, but such a 
 change takes place at the Mallee Scrub, and ap- 
 pears to be due to local circumstances. The same 
 clay is seen in the soil above the Murray cliffs, 
 which support the same flora, and is identical in 
 
THE MURRAY BEDS. 107 
 
 all respects. Perhaps the fossils are more tropical 
 in the Murray. They contain more Cephalopoda, 
 larger Terebratule, and, in fact, generally a larger 
 description of Zestacea, though of the same species 
 as those of Mount Gambier. But the difference 
 of temperature must be taken into consideration; 
 the latter is nearly three degrees of latitude farther 
 from the tropics. 
 
 The cliffs are not always upon both sides of the 
 river, but sometimes on one and sometimes on 
 the other. This arises from the current coursing 
 round different elevations of the rock. The for- 
 mation was first met with by Captain Sturt, at 
 about long. 140° east, and is thus described by 
 him :— 
 
 ‘As we proceeded down the river, its current 
 became weaker, and its channel somewhat deeper. 
 Our attention was called to a remarkable change 
 in the geology of the country, as well as to an 
 apparent alteration in the natural productions. 
 The cliffs of sand and clay ceased, and were suc- 
 ceeded by a fossil formation of the most singular 
 description. At first, it did not exceed a foot in 
 height above the water, but it gradually rose like 
 an inclined plane, and in colour and in appear- 
 ance resembled the skulls of men piled one upon 
 the other. The constant rippling of the water 
 against the rock had washed out the softer parts, 
 and made hollows and cavities that gave the whole 
 formation the precise appearance of a catacomb. 
 
 ‘On examination, we discovered it to be a com- 
 
108 THE MURRAY BEDS. 
 
 pact bed of shells, composed of a common descrip- 
 tion of marine shells, from two to three inches in 
 length, apparently a species of Turritella. 
 
 ‘At about nine miles from the commencement of 
 this formation it rose to the height of more than 
 150 feet; the country became undulating, and a 
 partial change took place in its vegetation. We 
 stopped at an early hour to examine some cliffs, 
 which, rising perpendicularly from the water, were 
 different in character and substance from any we 
 had as yet seen. They approached a dirty-yellow 
 ochre in colour, that became brighter in hue as it 
 rose, and, instead of being perforated, were compact 
 and hard. ‘The waters of the river had, however, 
 made horizontal lines upon these fronts, which dis- 
 tinctly marked the rise and fall of the river, as the 
 strength or depth of the grooves distinctly indicated 
 the levels it generally kept. It did not appear from 
 these lines that the floods ever rose more than . 
 four feet above the then level of the stream, or 
 that they continued for any length of time. On 
 breaking off pieces of the rock, we ascertained that 
 it was composed of one solid mass of sea-shells, of 
 various kinds, of which the species first mentioned 
 formed the lowest part. 
 
 * * * * * * 
 As we proceeded down the river, we found that it 
 was confined in a glen, whose extreme breadth | 
 was not more than half a mile. 
 
 ‘The hills that rose on either side of it were 
 of pretty equal height. The alluvial flats were 
 
THE MURRAY BEDS. 109 
 
 extremely small, and the boldest cliffs separated 
 them from each other. The flats were lightly 
 wooded, and were, for the most part, covered with 
 reeds or Polygonum. They were not much ele- 
 vated above the waters of the river, and had every 
 appearance of being frequently inundated. At 
 noon we pulled up to dine, upon the left bank, 
 under some hills, which were from 200 to 250 feet 
 in height. While the men were preparing our tea 
 (for we had only that to boil), M‘Leay and I 
 ascended the hills. The brush was so thick upon 
 them that we could not obtain a view of the dis- 
 tant interior. Their summits were covered with 
 oyster-shells, in such abundance as entirely to 
 preclude the idea of their having been brought 
 to such a position by the natives. They were in 
 every stage of petrifaction.’’ 
 
 At the great southerly bend very finely pre- 
 served fossils are found; and in a collection sent 
 to me I had no difficulty in recognising (as before 
 stated) many of the Mount Gambier species, but 
 there were others among them which I have not 
 as yet seen in the latter place. To the north of 
 the river Murray the country stretches out, in an 
 unknown plain of scrub, for very many miles, 
 where, according to some, the same foundation 
 may be occasionally seen. The uncertainty of such 
 observations leaves it doubtful if such be the case, 
 but the same flat scrub of yellow sand renders it 
 far from improbable. 
 
 If the area covered by this one formation be 
 
110 EXTENT OF THE BEDS. 
 
 now calculated, the territory occupied by it will 
 be seen to be immense. But we have only been 
 considering it in its north and south direction, 
 a little to the west of the boundary between the 
 two colonies. Let us now follow it farther to the 
 westward. On the map it will be seen that there 
 is a jutting-out of the coast (Cape Jervis) to the 
 west of the Murray mouth, which promontory is 
 the commencement of a range of hills upon which 
 Adelaide is placed. | 
 
 The range continues in a north and south direc- 
 tion, with few intervals, right up to Mount Hope- 
 less, at the bend of Lake Torrens, some 500 miles 
 to the northward of where the range commences. 
 It is not meant that this chain is uninterrupted, or 
 that there are not occasionally bends-off to the 
 north-west, and there are some in an easterly direc- 
 tion, as, for instance, the Barossa Ranges, and many 
 spurs and small ranges running off at various 
 points, but no one can look at the map without 
 being convinced that they all belong to one chain 
 of mountain, of which the loftiest is not more than 
 3,000 feet high, running in a general northerly 
 direction. | 
 
 They are all of nearly the same description of 
 rock, namely, slates, schists, and metamorphic 
 rocks, with occasionally granite, porphyry, and trap 
 rocks. A description has been already given in 
 the second chapter of this work. Let them only 
 be borne in mind just now for the sake of getting 
 a good idea of the geographical features of this 
 
EXTENT OF THE BEDS. 111 
 
 part of Australia, in order to better understand 
 the subject under consideration. . 
 
 The fossil coral formation extends to the foot of 
 these in a westerly direction as far as they are 
 known, and seems to have been deposited round 
 them. Between the chain and the river Murray 
 there is always a large extent of flat scrubby land, 
 known as the Murray Scrub. It possesses the 
 usual character of such scrubs, and, wherever wells 
 have been sunk, the usual shells have been found. 
 
 Commonly, there is a bed of oyster-shells on the 
 top, with others of a much more recent origin than 
 those in the strata beneath, being, in fact, mostly of 
 existing species, and this is one of the exceptions 
 referred to just now. 
 
 When it is stated that only one deposit is found in 
 the whole district, it is not meant to exclude others 
 which may overlay them. There is a newer de- 
 posit more or less distributed over this part of the 
 country, but then the older is always underneath, 
 and visible at a small depth, or may reasonably be 
 presumed to be present from the fact of its dipping 
 under the newer beds and reappearing again on 
 the other side. 
 
 On reaching the western side of the great South 
 Australian chain the formation disappears. On the 
 east side, again, a little plain is bounded by the 
 sea, which runs in an estuary to the northward of 
 Adelaide, and bears the name of St. Vincent’s Gulf. 
 The western side of the gulf is bounded by Yorke’s 
 Peninsula, a narrow boot-shaped strip of land, in 
 
112 EXTENT OF THE BEDS. 
 
 which the fossil beds appear again. High limestone 
 cliffs bound one side of the coast, and at Kangaroo 
 Island, which is only separated from the peninsula 
 by a channel bearing the name of Investigator’s 
 Straits, the fossiliferous rock is repeated, at least 
 in a few spots. To the westward of Yorke’s Penin- 
 sula, a great gulf (Spencer’s Gulf) runs up much 
 farther to the north than the one just. mentioned, 
 and west of that the country stretches out in an 
 almost unbroken scrub as far as the colony of 
 Western Australia. 
 
 Of the nature of the geological formation we can 
 know but little as certain; but, if we have pretty 
 accurate notions of what lies to the north and 
 what to the south, and know, further, that there 
 are no ranges of any consequence intervening, we 
 can form some idea of what rocks should exist there. 
 
 Of course such conclusions are liable to error, 
 because, if there may be an immense difference of 
 geological character in a small space of ground, 
 how much more in such a space as that which lies 
 between the points to be referred to? Of one thing 
 we may be sure, however, and that is, that there 
 are no mountain ranges of any altitude. If such 
 existed, they would give rise to rivers, and in the 
 great Australian Bight, to the south, no such 
 features occur. 
 
 When Captain Sturt, in 1845, pushed far into 
 the north-west interior and crossed the Stony De- 
 sert,* he found that fossiliferous limestone cropped 
 
 * See Expedition to Central Australia, vol. i. 
 
BEDS EXTENDING TO THE WESTWARD. 113 
 
 out on each side of Lake Torrens, and, in fact, in all 
 the flats of the interior where a view of the under- 
 lying rock could be obtained, he stated that the 
 fossils were identical with those of the Murray 
 cliffs. 
 
 Now, though there is every probability of the 
 correctness of these conclusions, yet they cannot be 
 considered much more than surmises without some 
 further data, because Captain Sturt was not a very 
 experienced geologist, and geology then was in 
 no very advanced state, so that assertions on such 
 matters must be accepted with caution. While 
 stating this, a tribute is in other respects due to 
 Sturt’s merit; indeed, if it were not out of place 
 here, | would add my mite to the general testimony 
 of admiration for that learned explorer, whose zeal, 
 untiring energy, and courage, were enhanced by a 
 humanity and unselfishness rarely met with, and 
 yet whose unpretending modesty shrank from 
 praise, while it threw a charm over all his narra- 
 tives. But still Captain Sturt may have been mis- 
 taken in the description of these fossils. It is not 
 stated whether he made any collections of them; if 
 so, they would set the question at rest at once. 
 We will suppose, however, they were identical with 
 those of the Murray. We may do so because of the 
 nature of the country, and because of what is found 
 to the south. 
 
 Following in this direction, we should come upon 
 the Australian Bight, that is, supposing the deposits 
 to continue from the parallel of Lake Torrens—a 
 
 I 
 
114 CENTRAL AUSTRALIA. 
 
 distance of about 5° of latitude to the most 
 northerly portion of the Bight, and about 10° 
 to the most southerly, which is King George’s 
 Sound. Now, be it observed, that to reach these 
 points we should have to traverse a country with 
 few or no elevations, and that as the rocks to the 
 north were crag, and if those of the south were 
 crag too, we may at least conclude that the strata 
 are continuous, —at any rate, in some places. Of 
 the nature of the deposit all along the coast we 
 have the testimony of very many persons who have 
 inspected it, and they all agree in describing it as 
 cliffs of fossils, precisely similar to the Murray beds. 
 In most cases, however, it is to be regretted, such 
 accounts are from men not capable of examining 
 whether the identity was a fact borne out by the 
 fossils, or given at a time when geology was not so 
 far advanced as it is at present; but the evidence 
 will go far towards positive proof, when it is shown 
 that the cliffs are precisely similar in appearance to 
 those of the Murray, and struck the observers as 
 being just such as would arise from a coral reef; 
 for there is no other formation in Australia, as far 
 as my knowledge goes, to which the same descrip- 
 tion would be applied. 
 
 Captain Flinders gave the following description 
 of the Australian coast after his survey in 1802 :— 
 ‘The length of these cliffs from their. second com- 
 mencement is 83 leagues, and that of the level bank 
 from New Cape Paisley, where it was first seen 
 from the sea, no less than 145 leagues. The height 
 of this extraordinary bank is nearly the same 
 
WESTERN AUSTRALIA. 115 
 
 throughout, being nowhere less by estimation 
 than 400 feet, nor anywhere more than 600 feet. 
 In the first 20 leagues the rugged tops of some 
 inland mountains were visible over it, but during 
 the remainder of its long course the bank was the 
 limit of the view. 
 
 ‘ This equality of elevation for so great an extent, 
 and the evidently calcareous nature of the bank, at 
 least in the upper 200 feet, would bespeak to have 
 been the exterior line of some vast coral reef, which 
 is always more elevated than the interior parts, and 
 commonly level with the high-water mark. From 
 the gradual subsiding of the sea, or, perhaps, from 
 some convulsion of nature, this bank may have 
 attained its present height above the surface, and, 
 however extraordinary such a change may appear, 
 yet when it is recollected that branches of coral 
 still exist upon Bald Head, at an elevation of 400 
 feet or more, this supposition assumes a degree of 
 probability, and it would further seem that the sub- 
 sidence of the waters has not been at a period very 
 remote, since these fossil branches have yet neither 
 been all beaten down, nor mouldered away by the 
 wind and weather. 
 
 ‘If this supposition be well founded, it may, with 
 the fact of no other hill or object having been per- 
 ceived above the bank, in the greater part of its 
 course, assist in forming some conjecture as to what 
 may be within it, which cannot, as I judge in such a 
 case, be other than flat sandy plains or water. The 
 bank may even be a narrow barrier, between the 
 
 T2 
 
116 THE AUSTRALIAN BIGHT. 
 
 interior and the exterior sea, and much do I regret 
 the not having formed an idea of this probability at 
 the time, for, notwithstanding the great difficulty 
 and the risk, I should certainly have attempted a 
 landing on some part of the coast, to ascertain a 
 fact of so much importance.’ * 
 
 It must be remarked that Cape Paisley, 124° E. 
 longitude, is made the commencement of the Bight; 
 but a reference to the map will show that the great 
 bend commences farther east, nearly at King 
 George’s Sound. Captain Flinders also states in the 
 above passage, that mountains were seen inland 
 for the first twenty leagues, but this in no way 
 affects the position as to the general continuity of 
 the strata, for he further remarks, that the coral is 
 seen in the cliffs at Bald Head, which is much 
 farther to the eastward, and not very far from King 
 George’s Sound. ‘The supposition of the receding 
 of the sea, and the great reluctance displayed by 
 the explorer to broach so daring a theory as the 
 upheaval of the land, show that geological know- 
 ledge was not in such a state as to make observa- 
 tions in that department very satisfactory. The 
 facts, however, are certain, and what Captain 
 Flinders supposed to have been a barrier reef is 
 the remains of something similar, though there is 
 no water on the other side, as he and Captain Sturt 
 at one time supposed, and the country is little more 
 than a barren desert. 
 
 Captain Sturt, in speaking of the above opinion 
 
 * Flinders’ Voyage to Terra Australia, London, 1814. 
 
THE AUSTRALIAN BIGHT. | 117 
 
 of Captain Flinders, says: ‘ His [Flinders’] impres- 
 sion, from what he observed while sailing along 
 the coast, in a great measure corresponds with 
 mine, when travelling inland. The only point we 
 differ upon is as to the probable origin of the great 
 sea-wall, which appeared to him to be of a calca- 
 reous formation, and therefore he concluded that it 
 had been a coral reef, raised by some convulsion of 
 nature. Had Captain Flinders been able to examine 
 the rock formation of the Great Australian Bight, 
 he would have found that it was, for the most part, 
 an oolitic limestone, with many shells embedded in 
 it, similar in substance and formation to the fossil 
 beds of the Murray, but differing in colour.’* 
 
 Upon what data these latter statements are 
 made, Captain Sturt does not tell us, but it may be 
 here noticed, that he thought the beds were con- 
 tinuous with those he observed farther inland, 
 that is, on the banks of Lake Torrens. Indeed, this 
 is assumed, with good reason, throughout his whole 
 work. It may be observed, that Captain Sturt 
 differs with Captain Flinders as to the nature of 
 the formation, and does not think that it arose from 
 a coral reef; but the very facts he brings in sup- 
 port of his position bear out the conclusion he 
 essays to disprove. From what has been already 
 said in this chapter, the description of Flinders is 
 just what we might expect from coral reefs, and 
 had the exploration of the Pacific and the nature of 
 our chalk rocks at home been better known than 
 
 * Sturt’s Central Australia, vol. ii. London, 1849, 
 
118 THE AUSTRALIAN BIGHT. 
 
 they were when Sturt wrote, he would not have 
 contradicted the former explorer, as no one cared 
 less than he did for his own opinion, provided truth 
 were elicited. The peculiar views held by the latter 
 were intended as a bold and ingenious explanation 
 of the physical features of the interior, and are 
 inconsistent with the idea of a coral reef on the 
 coast. He supposed that the inland sea in the 
 interior (of which there was probable evidence), 
 gave rise to the crag beds, and what is seen on the 
 coast is the drainage of this sea. I gather this 
 view from his work generally, though it is hardly 
 so distinctly enunciated; but, in speaking of the 
 Murray and the granite rocks therein, he supposes 
 that this on the Murray stopped the drainage, and 
 gave rise to the deep deposit of exuvie seen there. 
 
 There can be little doubt that these views are 
 incorrect. The granite appears to me intrusive, 
 and probably connected with the subsequent vol- 
 canic emanations which took place at Mount Gam- 
 bier. They will be described hereafter. 
 
 To return to the evidence as to the nature of the 
 Australian Bight. When Mr. Eyre went overland 
 to King George’s Sound, a Mr. Cannon was sent to 
 Fowler’s Bay (east longitude about 133°, south 
 latitude about 33°), to meet the explorer with sup- 
 plies, and survey the coast in the neighbourhood. 
 He says:—‘ From the general flatness of the coun- 
 try, it may be presumed that zs characters do not 
 alter for a great distance inland. I observed nothing 
 of the formation of the islands differing from the 
 
THE AUSTRALIAN BIGHT. 119 
 
 mainland, and I may mention that the rock of the 
 Isles of St. Francis presented the same appearance 
 as the Murray cliffs.’ 
 
 Ido not offer these and other similar testimonies 
 as decisive of the nature of the formation, but they 
 are rendered more than probable evidences when 
 considered with other circumstances. These are :— 
 The observations of Captain Sturt, the flat and 
 open nature of the intervening country, so closely 
 resembling the Murray Scrubs, and the absence of 
 rivers which would lead to the inference of no rises 
 or elevations, and, therefore, no upheaval or other 
 likelihood of great changes, in the strata between 
 the West and the great South Australian chain. It 
 is not attempted here to define boundaries, or to 
 say that there are no interruptions. How far the 
 strata may extend to the north we know not; they 
 are seen at Lake Torrens, but that may be its 
 highest point, and its western extremity is unknown 
 tome. As to interruptions, they are certain. The 
 mountains alluded to by Flinders are instances; 
 and then, again, the metamorphic rocks about Port 
 Lincoln. Latterly, discoveries in the north-west 
 country from Lake Torrens have shown that granite 
 rocks and elevations occur in the interior. These 
 may have been islands in the coral sea, or they may 
 have been intruded subsequently, as is probably 
 the case with the granite rocks in the bed of the 
 river Murray, and through the Tatiara country to 
 the north of Penola; but, at any rate, it is not pre- 
 tended that no breaks occur in the strata, though 
 
120 EXTENT TO THE EASTWARD. 
 
 there can be no doubt that, in spreading over as 
 they do so wide an extent, the interruption is very 
 small. 
 
 Having followed this formation westward of 
 Adelaide, and having mentioned the evidence in 
 favour of the surmise that a great portion of Cen-— 
 tral Australia is occupied by the same crag de- 
 posit, it is necessary to state how far it extends 
 to the eastward of the boundary line between the 
 colonies of Victoria and South Australia. It is 
 rather singular that the 141st meridian of east lon- 
 gitude, chosen as a boundary (most unadvisedly, 
 while the river Murray would have made a natu- 
 ral one) between the two colonies, should be really, 
 within a few miles, a geological boundary. Gene- 
 rally, along the line, or near it, trap rocks occur, 
 and continue for some distance. These rocks are 
 merely a stratum, and are founded on the coralline 
 rocks underneath. It appears that there has been, 
 during the Post-Pleiocene epoch, an immense flow 
 of basaltic trap, probably from submarine volca- 
 noes, and this has given rise to the rocks as they 
 are now found. ‘Though there are a great num- 
 ber of extinct volcanoes to the eastward of South 
 Australia, I do not think the trap has been derived 
 from any of them, because the lava is less vesicular 
 and more compact than can be accounted for by 
 supposing a subaerial crater; and, secondly, there 
 is no evidence of any great flow of lava from any 
 that at present exist. ‘ 
 
 In some places, the limestone is seen to protrude 
 
EXTENT TO THE EASTWARD. 121 
 
 from the igneous rock, and at Portland Bay, about 
 fifty miles to the east of South Australia, where 
 the coast action has exposed a fine section, the coral- 
 line limestone is seen underneath. These beds I 
 have carefully examined, and can state that the 
 fossils are quite identical with those of Mount 
 Gambier. There is certainly a greater proportion 
 of one kind to the exclusion of others, such, for 
 instance, as the abundance of Spatangus Forbesii, 
 Terebratula compta, while univalves are almost 
 absent, and the character of the stone is brittle and 
 friable. But such differences as these, while the 
 fauna remains the same, are more to be attributed 
 to local circumstances than differences of geological 
 position. 
 
 It would appear as if the beds at Portland were 
 formed farther away from the reef than those at 
 Mount Gambier, for corals are uncommon, the 
 Bryozoa small, the fossils, with very rare excep- 
 tions, much broken, and the stone is more like the 
 white mud, spoken of previously, than what is seen 
 elsewhere. The Cellepora gambierensis is absent. 
 The cliffs are topped with the oyster-shells seen 
 on the Murray, and then overlaid again by the 
 basaltic trap, which is here very much decom- 
 posed. ‘The fossil cliffs extend along the coast be- 
 tween Port Fairy and Cape Otway, and this is about 
 the same longitude as that on which they termi- 
 nate on the Murray. Of their continuance in a 
 southerly. direction we have no direct evidence, 
 but beds are described as occurring in Tasmania 
 
122 EXTENT TO THE EASTWARD. 
 
 which bear a strong resemblance to our formation. 
 In works on that country they are sometimes 
 alluded to, but in Bunce’s ‘ Australasiatic Sketches’ 
 they are more dwelt upon. As the passage is 
 really very interesting, its quotation will be par- 
 doned, as illustrating things which will be spoken 
 of again, but | must admit that the phraseology 
 of the description would be quite as applicable to 
 primary as to tertiary rocks. In an overland jour- 
 ney to Launceston, speaking of a range of hills 
 about twenty-one miles from Westbury, he says :— 
 
 ‘On ascending the ridge of this series of hills, 
 a magnificent view presented itself, suddenly, to 
 the delighted traveller, of rich and fertile surface, 
 with purple-tinted romantic hills in the distance. 
 After descending the ridge already named for the 
 distance of five or six miles, we crossed the Mole- 
 side rivulet, so called from the circumstance of its 
 occasionally disappearing and flowing underneath 
 the ground, like the river Mole, in England. The 
 whole of this neighbourhood is of limestone, with 
 beautiful white veins, and the strata are nearly 
 horizontal. There is a small circular plain, about 
 the distance of five miles from where we crossed 
 Moleside. The character of the country was most re- 
 markable, and appeared intersected for many miles 
 by numerous underground streams, flowing in, dif- 
 ferent directions, and at various depths. The effect 
 of these streams thus flowing underground causes 
 the undermining of the superincumbent earth, 
 which, being thus left without a foundation, has 
 
TASMANIAN BEDS. _ 123 
 
 fallen in many places, forming pits and basins of 
 the most singular kind, varying in depth of from 
 twenty to two hundred feet, and shaped like a fun- 
 nel. Many instances of this kind may be observed 
 in the neighbourhood of Mount Gambier and many 
 parts of the country near the Glenelg river in Vic- 
 toria. In the bottom of most of them is a small 
 circular pool of water, of immeasurable depth. A 
 party on one occasion descended one of the deepest 
 of them, and at the bottom found a cavern extend- 
 ing both ways, into which they entered. After 
 following its course, a sound of running water 
 was heard, and, although they were without lights, 
 the reflection from the entrance was sufficient to 
 enable them to distinguish a large body of water 
 rushing from a height, and flowing away, as it 
 were, beneath their feet.’ 
 
 There is nothing here mentioned about fossils, 
 and an apology is almost necessary for the intro- 
 duction of a long extract which bears so little on 
 the subject of this chapter. Still, the mention of 
 the circular pits, the caves, and the underground 
 rivers, is so very like what is subsequently to be 
 described of Mount Gambier and the vicinity, that 
 it was considered of some value to point out the 
 resemblance, and thence the faint possibility of the 
 deposit extending so far. If the beds were spread 
 out to such an extent southwards, they wouid only 
 be in the form of the white mud, which occasionally 
 drifts to so great a distance from the reefs, and 
 therefore fossils could not be expected. The mere 
 
124 GEOLOGICAL CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 existence of caves and rivers is, however, no 
 evidence, as they are found wherever there is lime- 
 stone. In the Wellington Valley, in New South 
 Wales, there are many of great extent, containing 
 bones, &¢c., though the formation in which they 
 occur is very different from that of Mount Gam- 
 bier. Some of these have never been explored, in 
 consequence of the rush of wind from them, which 
 prevents their entry with torches. 
 
 With the facts just mentioned all further clue to 
 our formation eastward or to the south is lost, and 
 though much uncertainty must prevail if we at- 
 tempt to define boundaries, enough has been said 
 to show that the formation covers a very wide 
 extent of country. And now, having shown this 
 immense extent to be covered by one formation, 
 let us enquire what has been the nature of the 
 operations which gave rise to it, and what other 
 geological conclusions may be drawn from the 
 detail given in the foregoing pages. | 
 
 In the first place, the formation has arisen from 
 a series of coral reefs, or is, in other words, the re- 
 sult of a coral sea. What has been already said 
 in proof of this need not, of course, be here re- 
 peated; but, if there should be any doubt on the 
 matter, what will be now adduced will serve to 
 bear out the view already taken. Secondly, the 
 land has been subsiding during the accumulation 
 of the strata. There are many reasons to be given 
 for this, but the most cogent of all is, that stra- 
 tified beds of any thickness are never deposited 
 
GEOLOGICAL CONCLUSIONS. 125 
 
 except where subsidence is taking place. If we 
 remark the coasts of Australia, which are now 
 evidently in course of upheaval, only very thin 
 beds are seen to result, because, as the raising force 
 is constantly changing the coast or the shallow 
 parts, where alone deposition takes place, there can 
 be no time for any great accumulations. On the 
 other hand, subsidence gives the greatest facilities 
 for the deposition of thick strata, because, the 
 deeper the sea, the more tranquil the bottom, and 
 the greater area there is for the distribution of 
 shells, either borne from the coast by currents or 
 worn away from other rocks by denudation. Be- 
 sides, the only favourable time for a developement 
 of coral reefs is during a period of subsidence; at 
 least, according to the ingenious theory now to be 
 mentioned, and which is at present universally 
 adopted. 
 
 Most persons are familiar with Darwin’s clever 
 and interesting work on the ‘ Structure and For- 
 mation of Coral Reefs,’ but, as nearly all here 
 adduced will be unintelligible without a clear 
 knowledge of the subject, the repetition of the 
 main points of the theory of that great geologist 
 will be pardoned. In the Pacific Ocean and other 
 tropical regions, coral islands occur of a most sin- 
 gular form: these are the atolls before described. 
 It was formerly supposed that these were reefs built 
 on the edges of extinct craters under the sea, and it 
 was imagined that the ova of the coral animal 
 pitched upon these sites as very favourable to their 
 
126 A PERIOD OF SUBSIDENCE. 
 
 operations, and then commenced building a reef 
 to the surface. ‘There were circumstances appa- 
 rently favourable to this view. An aperture was 
 generally found on one side of the lagoon through 
 which the lava of the supposed volcano underneath 
 might have escaped, and earthquakes were not un- 
 common in this neighbourhood. But a fatal diffi- 
 culty to be got over was their immense size; for 
 craters were never known sixty miles wide. This 
 was an enormous improbability. Besides which 
 the depth around these lagoons was more than 
 1,200 feet, where bottom could be reached (which, 
 was rarely), and it was known that the coral animal 
 could not exist at a greater depth than 180 feet. 
 
 It of course suggested itself to every observer, 
 that if there was an old crater underneath it must 
 be at a great depth, and how was the animal to 
 have got to it when a quarter that depth was suffi- 
 cient to destroy its life? At last, Mr. Charles. 
 Darwin, after his voyage in the Beagle, suggested 
 a theory which has been since universally adopted. 
 
 According to this, the coral animal seeks any 
 foundation to build upon that is not out of its 
 depth, supposing this to be an island. If the 
 land be stationary, the coral will build to the, sur- 
 face, and then either die or extend itself in a late- 
 ral direction; if the land be in course of upheaval, 
 the reef must at length perish; but if the land be 
 subsiding, the animal will build to keep near the 
 surface, and of course the rate of building must 
 keep pace with the subsidence, or it will be sub- 
 merged and destroyed. 
 
A PERIOD OF SUBSIDENCE. 127 
 
 It is evident that as the island sinks the distance 
 between the reef and the shore will be increased, 
 and when the land disappears entirely a ring of 
 coral will still be at the surface round the remains of 
 the old terra-firma, like a fence round the grave of 
 the departed. It will be unnecessary to go through 
 all the arguments by which this view is borne out, 
 or to state the reasons of the breaks in the side, 
 the lagoon, &c., but what bears on the matter in 
 question will be elucidated as we proceed. 
 
 So that, from the theory just given, we must 
 regard the coral district of the Pacific as an im- 
 mense area of subsidence, with some few excep- 
 tions, and that the reefs there seen are memorials 
 of high parts of the continent which formerly ex- 
 isted there. The reefs are of three kinds— barrier, 
 fringing, and atolls (ring islands). Fringing reefs 
 are those which surround continents and islands, 
 lying close to the shore, with no signs of subsidence 
 or upheaval. JBarrier reefs are those which either 
 extend along a coast line at some distance from it, 
 such as the barrier reef of North-western Austra- 
 lia, 800 miles long, and sometimes 70 miles from 
 the coast, or surround an island at a great distance 
 from the shore, such as the reef which surrounds 
 New Caledonia, so far from it that the mainland is 
 invisible therefrom. The atolls have been already 
 described. 
 
 Now it remains to enquire, to which class of reefs 
 should the crag coralline formation be referred? It 
 is obvious that very little of the original form can 
 be traced from the rocks themselves, and therefore 
 
128 EVIDENCE OF SUBSIDENCE. 
 
 our conclusion must be drawn from analogy rather 
 
 _ than from any other source; and thus it is to be 
 
 inferred that what we witness is not so much the 
 peculiar result of one or two coral reefs, but the 
 remains of a coral sea of various reefs spread over 
 a wide area, much as the coral sea of the Pacific 
 is at present.» Now, if the bed of the Pacific 
 were suddenly to be upheaved, so as to expose a 
 sectional view of the rock which has been form- 
 ing there during the existence of the present sea, 
 what should we perceive? A very white lime- 
 stone rock, fine-grained and soft, containing broken 
 branches of the Madrepora abrotanoides, Maan- 
 drina dedalea, Porites clavaria, and other branched 
 corals, while large Pectens, Chame, Astra, and 
 various fishes’ teeth, would be scattered through 
 the mass amid Coralline, Echini, &c. 
 
 We should find deep layers of these, because the 
 strata of the coral mud would be much more com- 
 mon, and cover a larger area than the reefs them- 
 selves, and these latter would have become nearly 
 obliterated, as, in the course of time, their dimen- 
 sions gradually contracted. The fossils we possess 
 in the strata now noticed, and the conclusions they 
 lead to, instead of indicating one particular reef, 
 show us how the bottom of the Pacific would 
 appear if now examined, and allowance made for 
 differences of time, place, and species. 
 
 But how are we to account for the absence of 
 
 * It is to be remarked, that I use the word ‘coral’ here not in its 
 strict sense. 
 
EVIDENCE OF FORMER REEFS. }29 
 
 the reefs themselves? This has for some time been 
 a formidable objection to the reef theory of Darwin. 
 It has been stated that no soundings, or only very 
 deep ones, are obtained close to the atolls. Now, 
 if the bottom of the sea were to be suddenly up- 
 heaved, immense coral mountains with basins on 
 the top should result from the islands. But, 
 wherever we have fossil evidences of an ancient 
 coral sea, nothing like this can be observed; on the 
 contrary, in the Australian coral reef, now under 
 consideration, country wonderfully level is met with. 
 To meet this difficulty, it must first be remem- 
 bered that the state of the Pacific may be something 
 peculiar to our era. This view is contrary to that 
 which supposes all the phenomena of geology to 
 have resulted from causes like those even now 
 going on about us. But we may question the ac- 
 curacy of applying the principle without some 
 modification. We may ask, Do not the coal periods, 
 the Wealden, the chalk, the crag, point to a peculiar 
 modification of the earth, to certain kinds of ve- 
 getable and animal life, of which the remarkable 
 growth of atolls is an instance in our own as dis- 
 tinct from other periods as the animals which now 
 build them are distinct from similar genera in 
 former epochs? 
 
 But, even waiving this explanation, it must be 
 remembered that the bottom of a coral sea is never 
 thus suddenly upheaved. The deposit, after slowly 
 subsiding, may remain stationary long before 
 upheaval takes place at all. It would then be 
 
 K 
 
130 WHY NO REMAINS OF REEFS ARE FOUND. 
 
 submerged, and subject to the action of the ocean. 
 This would stratify and wear away any eminence, 
 to say nothing of the slow rate of upheaval which 
 would give ample time for aqueous erosion or 
 denudation. It has been remarked, that the atolls 
 are gradually growing smaller as the bed upon 
 which they rest is subsiding. Now, if this be the 
 case, a time must come when they are reduced to 
 a mere peak, and then the animals will cease 
 building. The subsidence must be very slow for 
 the polypi to be able to keep pace with it, and so 
 once the coral was dead the atoll would be for an 
 immense time exposed to the fresh ravages of the 
 ocean, which would not be long reducing it to the 
 level of the rest of the sea bottom. The very form, 
 indeed, of atolls shows them to be liable to rapid 
 destruction, once the building operation of the 
 Zoophytes had ceased. Soundings taken close to 
 them show that they descend in the form of a very 
 steep narrow cone; and to find such in existence 
 after long submersion beneath the sea and subse- 
 quent slow upheaval, would be quite unaccount- 
 able, being so inconsistent with our present notions 
 of the sea’s ravages, and we should have to frame 
 some hypothesis why the ocean, which in some 
 places tears down lighthouses, rends rocks, and 
 destroys massive and gigantic breakwaters, should 
 spare such a fragile structure as a cone of dead 
 coral. For, as long as the polype lives, it can 
 build up faster than the waves can destroy; but 
 take away this force of animal life from the 
 
THE SWEDE’S FLAT. 131 
 
 struggle, and it is not difficult to see with whom 
 the victory would rest in the end. Yet, in spite of 
 these observations being true, we might meet with 
 such remains. The hypothesis might be in the 
 main correct, with occasional exceptions, though 
 what follows decides little either way. 
 
 Where evidence is very weak it is almost use- 
 less to adduce it; but it may be of some service to 
 describe two basins of limestone in the interior, 
 which it is just barely possible may be relics of 
 atolls. They both occur in the Tatiara, at about 
 120 miles north by west of Mount Gambier. One 
 is called the Swede’s Flat, and will be described at 
 length when we come to treat of caves. It is a flat 
 plain, like a dried-up lake, as level as a bowling- 
 green, fourteen miles long by two broad, and com- 
 pletely encircled by hills. There is no considerable 
 declivity outside it, but the soil is sandy and com- 
 posed of coralline rock. If it had been a lake, 
 there would be some traces of streams by which it 
 became filled, but there are none. It never retains 
 water on its surface, in consequence of large holes 
 which drain underground.* 
 
 The other is a hill about three miles slightly to 
 the west of the southern end of the one just 
 described: it is on the road between Kelly’s and 
 Lawson’s stations, and is called the Half-way Gully. 
 It is like an immense crater, with a break on one 
 (the eastern) side, as if for the passage of lava. It 
 
 * The level of the bottom of this flat is much above the sur- 
 rounding country. 
 
 K 2 
 
132 PROBABLE REMAINS OF ATOLLS. 
 
 is densely covered with brushwood, through which 
 the coralline limestone peeps from time to time. 
 Standing on its edge, the depression of the centre 
 appears about half a mile wide, and no other rock 
 but the coralline is anywhere visible. There is no 
 sudden declivity from the side, but the same scrub 
 and sand. Probably the hill is over a thousand 
 feet high, but it is joined to the range, and, there- 
 fore, very little elevated above its neighbours. 
 There are only two things to which it could be 
 compared —a crater, or an ancient atoll; and, as 
 there are no trap rocks within miles, we might, 
 though perhaps on weak evidence, suppose it to 
 have been the latter. 
 
 In the next chapter will be described some of 
 the vicissitudes which happened to our reefs, after 
 their burial in the bed of the ocean, which indicate 
 that its upheaval was neither very rapid nor very 
 soon after the submersion of the reef; what has 
 been said will, however, be sufficient to prove that 
 we may regard the Australian formation as the 
 result of a former coral sea, without expecting to 
 find the remains of either barriers, reefs, or atolls. 
 Let it be further remarked, that if it would appa- 
 rently require an immense layer of time to destroy 
 all trace of the structures to which the beds owed 
 their origin, at least, it would be far less than is 
 ordinarily required to account for geological ope- 
 rations; and that while thousands of years would 
 go as nothing to explain the coal formation, or 
 the upheaval of the post-glacial beds, a very few 
 thousand years would be sufficient to reduce the 
 
THE REEFS PROBABLY TO THE NORTH. 133 
 
 strata to the state in which they are now seen. 
 It has been already mentioned, that a thick 
 stratum of limestone, without fossils, is generally 
 the uppermost bed, and _ this may have been 
 derived from the wearing down of the reef, and 
 the rearrangement of the upper part of the beds. 
 The absence of this deposit in certain places does 
 not affect the general argument, that its absence 
 was rather the exception than the rule. 
 
 I should imagine that the reefs must have 
 existed more to the northern part of the present 
 formation. This might be supposed from the 
 ereater warmth of the climate, which would be 
 more favourable to such growths. Lesides, the 
 fact is apparent in the strata. ‘The farther south 
 they are traced, fossils become less frequent, more 
 broken, and the corals are much fewer. At Port- 
 land Cliffs, as I have already said, corals are very 
 rare, shells uncommon, and much broken, while 
 the limestone is more like the dried white mud 
 already frequently alluded to. At Mount Gambier 
 (distant seventy-three miles), corals are more com- 
 mon and less broken, shells of frequent occurrence, 
 while sharks’ teeth (Oxyrrhinus Woodsit) are abun- 
 dantly distributed. At Mosquito Plains (seventy 
 miles from Mount Gambier to the place referred to 
 here), the corals are the predominating fossils, and 
 are very perfect, preserving all their beautiful mani- 
 festations with little or no breakage, and often up- 
 right in the position in which they grew. At the 
 Murray, the fossils are principally shells of large 
 univalves and bivalves (the former principally 
 
134 EVIDENCE OF TRANSPORT OF FOSSILS. 
 
 Turritellide) showing a much more tropical fauna, 
 though the coral is not uncommon, with a greater 
 variety of species. | do not know of any place 
 where the variations of temperature can be traced 
 better than in this district, and the approach to 
 warmer latitudes is as clearly marked in the fossils 
 as the approach to the snow line or a mountain is 
 marked by the flora. 
 
 It is not often we have an immense formation 
 left undisturbed, so that we can journey from one 
 end to the other, and speculate on the exact tem- 
 perature which prevailed, by a comparison with 
 the present habitat of similar species. Whether 
 there is any great variation from what at present 
 obtains, can only be gathered from a more minute 
 examination of the faunze than I have been able to 
 afford them. That, however, the mean temperature 
 of the sea has been greater than what it now is near 
 the same places, there can be no doubt; but this 
 does not necessarily imply that the mean tempera- 
 ture of the earth was greater. Everyone is aware 
 how much the warmth of a climate or a sea is 
 dependent on the distribution of land in the 
 vicinity. Thus, the current of water from a tro- 
 pical latitude may be turned aside by a peculiar 
 conformation of the coast, and so carry a sea of 
 almost tropical temperature into a temperate zone. 
 Such really happens in the Bermudas (the only 
 extra-tropical locality where coral reefs flourish), 
 where the Gulf Stream keeps up a very high tem- 
 perature ; and, as in this part of Australia, the 
 
 dad 
 
SUBSIDENCE. 135 
 
 land may have been so disposed near what was 
 then the coral sea, that a very high ee 
 was kept up. 
 
 It is perhaps useless to speculate where the land 
 was at this time, but we may at least offer some 
 suggestions which bear slightly on the question. 
 
 A large area of the bed of the Pacific is known to 
 be subsiding, while, on the other hand, an immense 
 portion of the continent of Australia is known to 
 be uprising. If what we know to have been sea 
 during the Crag and probably Post-Pleiocene period 
 was subsiding, was the present subsiding area of 
 the Pacific a continent? What would be its posi- 
 tion if it were so? It has been observed that it is 
 mostly within the tropics. Now, Sir Charles Lyell 
 has beautifully shown in his ‘ Principles of Geology’ 
 that a distribution of land exclusively within the 
 tropics would have given rise to a temperature 
 perhaps beyond human endurance. Even suppos- 
 ing that the land was not exclusively within these 
 limits, a large tract of land, equal to the present 
 coral sea, would have materially affected the tem- 
 perature of our extinct sea, and amply account for 
 the existence of our almost tropical shells in tem- 
 perate latitudes. It is true that even in the coral 
 sea there are occasional periods of upheaval at pre- 
 sent, but these are very small, and do not affect the 
 general position that a large tract is subsiding. 
 
 It would be a very curious phenomenon, if it 
 were proved that the upheaval of one part of the 
 earth’s surface was compensated by the subsidence 
 
136 SUBSIDENCE. 
 
 of another. It would show a regularity in such 
 movements that might eventually prove them to 
 result according to a fixed law. I have always 
 been of opinion that disturbance of the kind was 
 less common and more general in the Southern 
 than in the Northern hemisphere, but this is little 
 more than opinion. At the same time, the multi- 
 tude of different strata in Europe, the small area 
 they occupy, and the marks of upheaval, contor- 
 tion, and breaks at almost every step, while large 
 undisturbed tracts exist in South America and 
 Australia, would seem to confirm the opinion. 
 
 I cannot close this chapter without alluding to 
 a train of thought into which I have been led while 
 studying these rocks. 
 
 The three great periods into which fossiliferous 
 rocks have been divided are characterised by dis- 
 tinct predominance of one kind of animal life. 
 Thus, the Paleozoic rocks have been characterised 
 as the age of sauroids, fishes, and articulata; the 
 Secondary —reptiles, marsupials, and cephalopo- 
 dous mollusca; the Tertiary — pachydermata, and 
 by a gradual approach to what the earth is now. It 
 is not pretended that no other living things existed, 
 but that these predominated, and, though great 
 additions may hereafter be made to our list, by the 
 discovery of new animals, it will not affect the 
 general proposition, that a peculiar class of animal 
 life was more common in one period than another. 
 It has been further observed, by many geologists, 
 but more especially by the late Hugh Miller, that 
 
GEOLOGICAL THEORIES. 137 
 
 a gradation in creation may be traced, in the three 
 enumerated periods, where a series of less perfect 
 organisations seem gradually to prepare for higher 
 creatures. | 
 
 It should here be remarked, that when the term 
 ‘less perfect’ is used, it is not meant to be accepted 
 literally. All God’s works are equally perfect, 
 and there is as much room for wonder and admira- 
 tion at the perfection of design in the simplest 
 plants as there is in the most complicated animal; 
 but what is meant is, that some organisations are 
 less complex, or have less special adaptations than 
 others. Thus, the simple Acalephe, or jelly-fish, 
 perform the functions of respiration, absorption, 
 assimilation, and circulation, in the mass generally, 
 and each function is performed perfectly, to meet 
 the requirements of the animal. In a warm-blooded 
 animal these functions have all special organs, such 
 as the lungs, the lymphatics, the stomach, the heart. 
 These are more complex, but not more perfect, 
 or fit the animal better to fulfill the end of its 
 creation. 
 
 But there has been (so geologists tell us, admit- 
 ting their knowledge to be very imperfect and 
 unsatisfactory as yet) a developement: from the 
 earlier periods of an approach to a more complex 
 organisation, which ended in Man. ‘Thus, in the 
 sauroid period, the kind of animal most common 
 was one with a very low cerebral developement, an 
 imperfect respiratory system, a heart with only one 
 auricle and ventricle, and whose ova were extruded 
 
138 GEOLOGICAL THEORIES. 
 
 in the most elementary state, germinating and de- 
 veloping themselves quite distinct from the parent. 
 Birds were also common in this period, and these, 
 though possessed of a complete respiratory and 
 circulating system, are of a very low cerebral de- 
 velopement, and the young are born in a most 
 embryonic state. The Articulata common to this 
 epoch are low in the scale of animal organisation. 
 Fishes give way to Reptiles, whose respiration is by 
 lungs, whose heart contains three cavities, whose 
 ova are more developed than those of fishes (some 
 are viviparous, ¢.g. land salamander). Articulata 
 give way to Cephalopoda, the most highly organ- 
 ised of the Mollusca. Lastly, the first Mammalia 
 appear, but these of a very low organisation; for 
 the only ones that have been found have been 
 proved to be marsupial, and these are animals only 
 one degree removed from birds. Their cerebral de- 
 velopement is low (the corpus callosum being most 
 rudimentary, and the convolutions of the brain 
 entirely absent), while their young are developed 
 distinct from the mother, being born in a merely 
 embryonic state. Finally, in the tertiary period 
 we see the highest developement which the animal 
 world has undergone up to the time of man’s 
 creation. The commencement is seen in the 
 earlier strata becoming gradually more numerous 
 up to our own period. 
 
 Now, it has been remarked by some geologists, 
 that, from the fossil flora and fauna of Europe, 
 during the Pleiocene period, a state of things must 
 
GEOLOGICAL THEORIES. 139 
 
 have prevailed there very similar to what obtains 
 in America now. So that America is, in reality, 
 in her Pleiocene period, or one geological period 
 behind the Old World. This principle is of course 
 meant to be accepted in a modified way, for there 
 must be a great admixture in the living animals 
 and plants between it and those which now tenant 
 Europe. But, as a general principle, it has been 
 stated as possessing some truth, and several re- 
 markable facts in accordance have been given. 
 
 Now, with regard to Australia, I wish to enunciate 
 a similar principle (not orginated entirely by me), 
 of course subject to many limitations, though less 
 than what are required for America, and deci- 
 dedly more marked in character. I believe that 
 the present state of this part of Australia is very 
 similar to what Europe was immediately after the 
 secondary period, and that really, in regard to the 
 developement of its fauna and flora, this continent 
 is far behind the rest of the world. The position 
 of Australia renders it less liable to an admixture 
 of its species with those of other continents, and, 
 therefore, its natural history is, to a certain 
 extent, peculiar to itself. 
 
 In the flora, the correspondence to the secondary 
 period is well marked. There the Araucarie, so 
 common to the secondary rocks, are represented, 
 and these are only found in Norfolk Island and 
 Australia. There are the Zamie and Arthrozamia, 
 found only at the Cape of Good Hope and Aus- 
 tralia, being closely allied to species found in 
 
140 GEOLOGICAL THEORIES. 
 
 secondary deposits. There are likewise plants 
 which, though not connected botanically with the 
 mesozoic flora, bear a striking resemblance to them, 
 and these are the Xanthorrheww, which abound in 
 all the continent. If we may judge from the few 
 specimens which have been preserved to us from 
 secondary rocks, the flora was not abundant there, 
 and in this particular our country resembles it; 
 for the general character of the country is most 
 decidedly barren, more especially in those places 
 where the strata I have been describing are found. 
 Then, with regard to the Mammalia, no indigenous 
 animals have been found distinct from the Marsu- 
 pialia, except rodents, and one or two species about 
 whose introduction doubts have been entertained. 
 The rodents are an order which has many affinities ° 
 with marsupials, and one species occurs where the 
 characters are interchanged,—the Phascolomys. 
 Our birds, though beautiful, are comparatively few 
 in number, and even these not all peculiar to our 
 country. And, lastly, there are no secondary rocks 
 found in Australia,* but a great portion of the 
 country appears to have been recently raised from 
 the sea, where it has undergone a state of things 
 very similar to our chalk; while the immense tracts 
 of desert country, and the large portions that are | 
 quite unavailable, indicate a territory less adapted 
 
 * In the ‘Geological Society’s Journal’ for May 1860, there is a 
 letter from Mr. Selwyn to Sir R. Murchison. In this it is stated that 
 two fossils have been found, which Professor M‘Coy thinks to be 
 decidedly belonging to the chalk. 
 
GEOLOGICAL THEORIES, 141 
 
 for the habitation of man than any tract of land 
 of similar size on the face of the earth. 
 
 The following passage from Mantell’s ‘Wonders 
 of Geology’ is directly confirmatory of the pre- 
 vious statement. Speaking of the Wealden strata, 
 he says:—‘ Nor can we resist the conviction, that 
 not only did the same terrestrial area, however 
 modified it must have been during the long 
 succession of ages, supply the débris of an 
 almost unchanged system of animal and vege- 
 table life to the jurassic seas at first, and 
 subsequently to the cretaceous ocean, but that 
 also the fauna and flora of this ancient land, 
 of the secondary epoch, had many zmportant 
 features which now characterise Australia. The 
 Stonesfield marsupials and the Purbeck plagiau- 
 lax are allied to genera now restricted to New 
 South Wales and Tasmania, and it is a most 
 interesting fact, as Professor Phillips was first to 
 remark, that the organic remains with which these 
 relics are associated also correspond with the eaist- 
 ing forms of the Australian continent and neigh- 
 bouring seas; for it is in those distant latitudes 
 that the waters are inhabited by Cestracions, Tri- 
 gome, and Terebratule, and that the dry land is 
 clothed with araucariz, tree ferns, and cycadeous 
 plants.’ 
 
 We have no means of knowing what was the 
 state of the earth after the secondary period in 
 Europe; but, knowing the conformation of the un- 
 derlying rock, and knowing that it is of a kind 
 
142 GEOLOGICAL THEORIES. 
 
 that must give rise to a sandy soil, taking, perhaps, 
 ages before a good loam could be formed upon it, 
 and knowing, further, its generally level character, 
 there must have been a state of things after its 
 upheaval not very different from what is now ob- 
 served in Australia. The absence of secondary 
 rocks in the continent, as far as it has been yet ex- 
 plored, is certainly remarkable; and though negative 
 evidence must not be relied on, still sufficient of the 
 colonies is known to make their absence a matter 
 of some certainty. Abundance of the rocks formed, 
 7.e., metamorphic slates, schists, eurites, porphyries, 
 and granites, are found principally on elevated 
 tracts or mountain ridges. Trap rocks are common, 
 mostly in Victoria. Silurian slates have been 
 found, I believe, in all the colonies, as well as the 
 old red sandstone coal measures (excepting in 
 South Australia), and in some places the new red. 
 But after these there is a great hiatus, and the 
 tertiary rocks are the only continuation that we 
 have. 
 
 Now, I do not mean to say, when I state that 
 Australia has gone through a period corresponding 
 to the Secondary in Europe, that there is a blank in 
 the geological history of the continent, or that our 
 primary corresponds to the secondary elsewhere. 
 There may be, for all we know, mesozoic rocks un- 
 derneath our cainozoic, though it is not probable, 
 or Australia may have been a group of islands or 
 a continent during all that time. Perhaps it would 
 be better, to prevent misapprehension, and to avoid 
 
GEOLOGICAL THEORIES. 143 
 
 the infinite limitation which a more general prin- 
 ciple would require, by stating, that no more is 
 meant in the above facts than this,—that the state 
 of things now seen in Australia bears a strong ana- 
 logy to what Europe must have been at the close of 
 the mesozoic epoch, and that, in accordance with 
 this, Australia, in its natural history, is far behind 
 in developement to any other part of the known 
 earth. | 
 
 If any further speculation on the subject should 
 cause the principle to be more strictly applied, the 
 cause of science will be more benefited that way 
 than by stating too much in the first instance. 
 Not to conceal, however, any fact which might 
 militate against my view, it must be mentioned 
 that the fossil remains of a lion and of a native 
 dog (supposed at one time to have been introduced) 
 prove that until recently these animals flourished 
 as indigenous to the soil. 
 
 If the above principle be true, it gives rise to one 
 important consideration. There are some who, when 
 ‘they discover a sequence in creation, do not trouble 
 themselves to enquire why the Almighty chose such 
 and such a plan in following it out; they look 
 upon each part as of necessity belonging to the 
 whole, and they would seem to infer that, because 
 God adopted a certain gradation, no deviation was 
 possible. Something of this kind is to be traced 
 in an otherwise able work, entitled ‘ Vestiges of 
 Creation,’ and many other works on creation imply 
 the doctrine, that if the motive of the earth’s crea- 
 
144 GEOLOGICAL THEORIES. 
 
 tion were to prepare a habitation for man, all that 
 went before manifestly tended to this, and at no 
 other geological period than at present could he 
 have existed. Undoubtedly the present period is 
 better for man than any which went before, as far | 
 as we know, but it is far from being impossible for 
 him to have existed previously. The very fact that 
 man finds an easy, nay, comfortable, subsistence in 
 Australia, which, whether my principle be admitted 
 or not, is far behind other countries in natural de- 
 velopement, proves, on the one hand, the perfect 
 adaptability of the earth as a residence for man at 
 other periods— besides our small conception of the 
 plans of the Creator; while, on the other, the better 
 adaptation of the other parts of the earth, more ad- 
 vanced and developed, proves the beneficence of 
 the Author of it all in perfecting man’s habitation 
 to the highest degree before He placed him upon it. 
 We may, however, say, that speculations which 
 threaten large conclusions are best not made when 
 they militate against certain truths (7.e. revealed) 
 on such weak evidence as the negative evidence of 
 geology. A limited amount of reflection will show 
 how very small a portion of the earth’s products 
 get buried in marine or fresh-water strata; and yet 
 how small, how very small, a portion of even these 
 do we know,—how little, out of such a mass, can a 
 few quarries, a few wells, a few mines or excava- 
 tions, tell us! What, then, is the value of such 
 theories as those which rest on the absence of our 
 knowledge for their principal argument? 
 
GEOLOGICAL THEORIES. 145 
 
 When we contemplate the vicissitudes to which 
 the earth has been subject, we cannot help tracing 
 a progress and civilisation in nature similar to what 
 men pretend to in history. An ungenial soil has 
 arisen from a recently-raised tract of land, and this, 
 again, only supports a most meagre amount of ani- 
 mal life, not only few in numbers, but low in the 
 scale of vital organisation. What a difference 
 would have resulted from a different fauna is told 
 by the experience of those who have kept sheep 
 and cattle stations, who say that every year after 
 their introduction sees an improvement. As it was, 
 however, prior to the entrance of the white race, 
 while nature toiled towards a better state of things, 
 the land was ill adapted as a residence for man. 
 Human nature actually languished in. many parts 
 of it, that is, were driven to means of subsistence 
 badly adapted to support life. Captain Sturt men- 
 tions that the natives of the interior depended 
 almost entirely on the grass-seed for their support, 
 and even these sometimes failed, so that they were 
 met with in a most emaciated condition. The same 
 author also mentions, in his account of the journey 
 to the Darling in 1828, which was a season of great 
 drought, that most of the natives were nearly 
 starved, a whole tribe having to subsist on the gum 
 they collected from the bark of the wattle-tree. It 
 would appear that Australia is subject to periodi- 
 cally dry seasons, and that then the natives of 
 the interior suffer fearful privations, and become 
 subject to contagious disorders. But this does not 
 
 L 
 
146 BARRENNESS OF AUSTRALIA, 
 
 interfere with the fact, that the continent can sup- 
 port human life, for, in spite of all their endurance, 
 they did not appear to be diminishing in numbers 
 until the white race came among them. 
 
 It is true that distress and famine only occur 
 among the natives of the desert part of the country, 
 while those in the better lands near the coast and 
 mountains lead a more comfortable life. But the 
 state of the soil and the country generally has 
 a great deal to do with the fact, that the abo- 
 rigines of Australia are, with the exception of the 
 Fuegians, the most degraded, the most helpless 
 race on the face of the earth. 
 
 In conclusion, let it be added, that if this country 
 ever becomes great among nations, it will not be 
 owing to the possession of many natural advan- 
 tages. It is melancholy to look upon the map, and 
 think of the immense tract of soil that must ever 
 be useless to man. A bright future may be in store 
 for some places, it has already dawned upon others, 
 but to think of the vast deserts, sometimes bor- 
 dering close on the comparatively small tract of 
 agricultural land, leaves but little hopefulness for 
 the greater part of the continent. There is room, 
 however, for years to come, for settlers, on spots as 
 rich, perhaps, as any the earth affords. But from 
 the interior we turn in a despair like that of Captain 
 Sturt, who, when he had penetrated to the farthest 
 point ever reached by the European, stood upon a 
 mound of sand gazing, as he said, upon an expanse 
 unequalled in the world for barrenness and deso- 
 lation. 
 
CONCLUSION. 147 
 
 We gain, from time to time, some trifling increase 
 to our knowledge of its aridity, but all our know- 
 ledge results in this, that we know it never will be 
 a home for man—that all our efforts at its explo- 
 ration have been baffled, and the explorers sent 
 back sickened and exhausted—that the bones of 
 one of a finely equipped party, led on by an 
 indefatigable genius,* now whiten on some part 
 of its arid expanse. 
 
 * Leichardt. 
 
 NOTE TO CHAPTER V. 
 
 Since the above was written, Mr. Stuart has succeeded in reaching 
 _ the centre of the continent, and had nearly crossed, when he was 
 driven back by the natives. He has started again with a party of 
 thirteen men. The loss of Burke and ‘Wills will be also fresh in the 
 memory of all. 
 
 I have lately heard that the bones of an extinct hyzna have been 
 found in a cave here. This is very doubtful. Large bones were also 
 found in some clay which fell away from the banks round Lake Colac. 
 I could never ascertain what they were, nor what ultimately became 
 of them. If the banks round these lakes owed their origin to a pro- 
 cess similar to the banks round lakes described in the last chapter, 
 they must have been land animals or amphibious reptiles to have be- 
 come imbedded in them. I am assured, however, by those who saw 
 them, that they were much too large for any kangaroo. Could it be 
 the Bothriceps australis, described by Professor Huxley in the Geolo- 
 gical Society’s Journal? He states that the specimen was in the 
 British Museum, but that nothing more was known of it than that it 
 came from Australia. The animal is a reptile, but probably not geo- 
 logically modern, and more likely came from a sandstone formation. 
 
148 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HOW THE REEF ENDED. 
 
 CESSATION OF THE CORALLINE FORMATION.——DESCRIPTION OF 
 UPPER CRAG.——-EXTENT OF IT.—DERIVED FROM AN OCEAN 
 CURRENT.—GUICHEN BAY BEDS.— ABSENCE OF FOSSILS IN 
 THEM.—CAPE GRANT BEDS.—STRATA THERE DESCRIBED.— 
 TRAP ROCK AND AMYGDALA.—SIMILARITY OF UPPER BEDS TO 
 UPPER CRAG IN ENGLAND.—SINGULAR FORMATION NEAR THE 
 TRAP.——LOCALITIES WHERE THE UPPER CRAG IS FOUND.— 
 BROKEN FAUNA.——REEFS LEFT OF CRAG.—CONCRETIONS. — 
 NOT OWING TO CASTS OF TREES.— DECOMPOSITION OF THE 
 ROCK. —- BLOWHOLES. — DENUDATION AND UPHEAVAL.— WHAT 
 BECOMES OF DETRITUS.—HISTORY OF THE DEPOSIT. —DENU- 
 DATION.—CORALLINE CRAG OF SUFFOLK.—WATER-LEVEL.— 
 DEEP-SEA SOUNDINGS. 
 
 ROM the consideration of the coral beds we 
 pass to those next in succession above. For- 
 tunately, there is no blank in the geological history 
 of the country now treated of. What we next find 
 is the sequel to what has gone before, being just, 
 in fact, what we might expect would, in the opera- 
 tions of nature, succeed the formation just described. 
 It has been seen, that, during the building of the 
 crag, the bed of the sea was subsiding, and that 
 before the subsidence was terminated, or at least 
 before upheaval commenced, the coral animal must 
 have ceased building. Many things might have 
 caused the destruction of the zoophytes. Hithera 
 sudden subsidence, or a change in the temperature 
 
NEW DEPOSIT. 149 
 
 of the waters, or the advent of a current containing 
 sediment. That this latter cause is fatal to the 
 progress of reefs is proved by observation. One of 
 the causes why one side of the atolls is invariably 
 broken down (a circumstance appealed to by earlier 
 geologists in favour of the view that they were ex- 
 tinct craters) is because of a current of sediment in 
 that direction being caused by the prevailing wind. 
 In fringing reefs the parts opposite a river or stream 
 from the land are nearly destitute of coral, and what 
 is near them is always dead. Breaks in barrier 
 reefs are traced opposite streams in the land which 
 they surround, even long after they are so far re- 
 moved as to cease to be affected by them. All or 
 either of the causes above enumerated may have 
 combined to destroy the reefs here treated of, and 
 probably the latter bore the chief part. It is of no 
 moment to enquire now how it ceased to exist; of 
 one thing we are certain, and that is, that the de- 
 posit did terminate and a change came. This 
 change gave rise to a different kind of rock, and 
 this is what next comes for our consideration, and 
 forms the subject of the present chapter. 
 
 Round the coast (which, as before stated, prin- 
 cipally consists of coralline cliffs or hillocks) 
 patches of a different kind of rock from the white 
 chalky deposit are occasionally seen. At times, it 
 forms sea-cliffs of itself, and then it affords a good 
 variety, from the generally uniform white coast 
 line, this being dark brown in colour, and more 
 compact and rugged than the underlying strata. It 
 
150 ROCKS AT GUICHEN BAY. 
 
 is found more or less all round the coast of the 
 colony of South Australia, and perhaps it extends 
 all along parts of the Australian Bight. It is seen 
 to most advantage where the coast is bold, and 
 where it forms cliffs; and, as a better idea can be 
 gained of the nature of the formation from such 
 localities, I shall confine myself to them for the 
 present. The principal places, then, where the rock 
 is observed to most advantage are Guichen Bay, a 
 port on the South Australian coast, between the 
 most southerly part of the colony and the Coorong, 
 and an indentation on the coast between Cape 
 Bridgewater and Cape Grant, a little to the west of 
 Portland, in the colony of Victoria. The whole 
 eastern and northern sides of Guichen Bay are 
 composed of low sand-hills, scarcely thirty feet 
 above the water-level, but on the southern side a 
 change takes place. The sand is replaced by 
 rough craggy rocks, which, though not rising 
 very high, are bold and abrupt, sometimes pre- 
 senting a perpendicular face to the heavy surf 
 which beats upon that coast. Seen at a distance, 
 one would imagine that these rocks were divided 
 only into larger strata, fourteen or sixteen feet 
 thick, but, on a closer inspection, another kind 
 of stratification is discernible. In addition to the 
 ereat divisions, which are so distinct that one could 
 almost suppose that they were huge slabs of rock 
 laid upon one another, there is cross stratification. 
 This is a lamination which divides the beds into 
 strata about two inches thick, but they are never 
 
ROCKS AT GUICHEN BAY. 151 
 
 horizontal like the real strata, are scarcely ever 
 parallel, and never continuous across the great 
 divisions which divide one bed from another. 
 
 Now, all these appearances taken in connection 
 with the mineral character now to be described, 
 are clearly indicative of an ocean current. Any- 
 one conversant with the elements of geology will 
 not require to be told why this conclusion follows, 
 from the facts above stated. It will be sufficient 
 to say, that the want of horizontality in the smaller 
 strata is due to some disturbance in the water 
 from which they were deposited, and, as they bear 
 in one particular direction, this must have been 
 owing to a stream which deposited particles as it 
 flowed along. The greater divisions are caused 
 by an alteration in the direction of the current, 
 which, before it would deposit any new matter, 
 would carry away the lighter superficial particles, 
 and wear down to a smooth surface all the ine- 
 qualities left by the former stream. 
 
 If there were any doubt about this theory, it is 
 quite removed by the nature of the rock. We 
 know what kind of matter we should expect to 
 find at the bottom of suchastream. Their course 
 is generally slow, and therefore only small frag- 
 ments of shells, grains of sand, and fine mud 
 would be carried by them. A river will carry 
 down mud from the banks, and fragments of wood, 
 but an ocean current, which generally takes its 
 rise in deep water, can only have the detritus of 
 the rocks and shells it has acted upon. 
 
152 ROCKS AT GUICHEN BAY. 
 
 The material of the rock now under considera- 
 tion would appear, at first, to be a coarse-grained 
 sandstone. Under the microscope, however, it is” 
 found to consist of small particles of shells, worn 
 by attrition into thin scales, and small grains of a 
 quartzose sand. It is freely acted upon by acids, 
 and, with the necessary reagents, shows great 
 quantities of lime, magnesia, and silica, with traces 
 of sesquioxide of iron and sulphate of lime, but no 
 phosphates nor organic matter. There are no fos- 
 sils, excepting in a few places which I shall specify. 
 From these facts, therefore, we may not only con- 
 clude that the deposit was from an ocean current, 
 but also that it was a considerable distance from 
 any land; because, coast drifts are generally 
 rather rapid, being derived from large rivers 
 or similar causes, while those far from land seldom 
 exceed the rate of three miles an hour, and any- 
 thing much quicker than this must infallibly have 
 included larger particles of shells, and even whole 
 ones. | 
 
 Guichen Bay is not so well provided with this 
 rock as a small inlet at the south side of Cape 
 Lannes, the promontory which helps to form the 
 south-east side of the harbour. Here the rocks 
 are seen in bold section, for sometimes the cliffs 
 are nearly a hundred feet high. 
 
 The little bay is very deep, so that the water 
 washes the cliffs nearly all round. In some places 
 the action of the surf has undermined them, and 
 caused them to fall, and the spray has eaten into 
 
ROCKS AT GUICHEN BAY. 153 
 
 its -soft friable texture, giving parts a wild and 
 jagged outline. These features, and the singular 
 cross stratification of the cliffs that have escaped 
 the ravages of the ocean, the dark hue of the 
 stone, the heaps of ruins scattered about like fallen 
 castles, and the boiling of the heavy surf, which, 
 even in the calmest day, breaks upon the rocks, 
 make a sublime scene, which for wild beauty 
 would be unequalled in Australia, were it on a 
 little larger scale. Even as it is, however, it 
 reminds one of the bold coasts of the Highlands; 
 and the little verdure which the mesembryan- 
 themums give, as they creep down the surface of 
 the rock, or hang swaying on the wind, tends little 
 to soften its desolate and savage aspect. 
 
 There are, as I have stated, no fossils; but the 
 summit of each cliff is topped by a stratum of 
 compact limestone, horizontally disposed, but lying 
 unconformably. This, I presume, is a relic of 
 the last coast action, before the deposits were up- 
 heaved to their present position; and from the fact 
 that the same stone, lying in the same manner 
 farther inland, contains marine fossils of existing 
 species, I have no doubt that it is of the same 
 age as the very recent beds to be spoken of here- 
 after, which exist all round the coast. 
 
 Let us turn now to the other locality spoken of 
 above, as possessing the same beds. This is the 
 bay (Grant Bay) between Cape Bridgewater and 
 Cape Grant, a little to the west of Portland Bay. 
 There the deposits are seen to greater advantage, 
 
154 ROCKS AT CAPE GRANT. 
 
 and on a larger scale ; besides, from the rocks 
 associated with them, we are able to decide more 
 positively as to the total distinctness of the forma- 
 tion from the coral reef. The bay is some three 
 or four miles wide, bounded on the two sides by 
 the capes above mentioned, which are fine rocky 
 headlands, with deep-water at these very places. 
 The whole coast of the inlet is very precipitous,— 
 so much so, that there are only one or two places 
 where you can descend from the cliffs on to the 
 beach. Seen from above, the appearance of the 
 bay is peculiar; because, after a little belt of sand, 
 all round between the cliffs and the water, the surf 
 beats in amidst a confused mass of large black 
 boulders, much corroded by the action of the sea, 
 but still preserving an irregular figure. These 
 are trap rocks, or a very vesicular brownish-black 
 basalt. To this the precipitous coast forms a great 
 contrast, being the yellowish-brown stone, precisely 
 similar to what is found in Guichen Bay, but it 
 is seen to be based on the same basaltic rock 
 throughout its continuation. 
 
 But the stratification is what makes it most 
 singular. Not only are the minor laminations 
 quite out of the horizontal, but even the great 
 divisions. One part of the bay looks as if the 
 strata had been deposited horizontally, and that 
 afterwards the two ends had been upheaved and 
 pressed close together, making the beds almost like 
 the letter W, only a little more rounded. Most 
 frequently, however, the great divisions preserve 
 
 —————— 
 
 ~~ . 
 
@ 
 ROCKS AT CAPE GRANT. 155 
 
 a serpentine line, though, in places, the diagonal 
 or cross stratification is alone irregular, the rest 
 preserving a uniform horizontal line. 
 
 Descending to the beach, the brittle and friable 
 nature of the stone is observed, it being less com- 
 pact than what is seen at Guichen Bay, and this is 
 what makes the descent to the coast so difficult, 
 for the mere action of the weather has eaten away 
 the face of the cliff, making the summit in many 
 places overhang the base by many feet. The rock 
 is of the same texture as that of Guichen Bay, a 
 calcareous sandstone, in every respect similar in 
 appearance, and, like it, containing no fossils. At 
 first sight, one would be induced to refer the con- 
 torted appearance of the beds to irregular upheaval, 
 which has twisted them and bent them into the 
 inclined position they hold at present. But this 
 theory is quite untenable. Whatever upheaval 
 there has been was of a most regular kind, and 
 equal in its operation. 
 
 The underlying strata are in no way disturbed, 
 and the stratum of basalt upon which the sand- 
 stone (or upper crag, as I shall term it,) rests, is 
 as horizontal as the sea. The only way, then, of 
 explaining the irregularity, is by supposing the 
 current, from which the detritus was deposited, to 
 have been rather strong and variable at this place, 
 giving rise to shifting sandbanks, more abrupt in 
 torm, and more liable to change their character, at 
 every change in the direction of the stream. 
 
 Perhaps, again, the sea was shallower here; and 
 
156 ROCKS AT CAPE GRANT. 
 
 just as there are sandbanks along the coast, with 
 deep soundings round them, liable to change their 
 form every year, so these beds may have existed 
 near a coast and been subject to great vicissitudes. 
 The layer of trap upon which they are based 
 affords a good answer to a difficulty I at one time 
 felt about the upper crag, as I shall term it in 
 future. It is well known that the summit of dead 
 coral reefs presents an appearance very similar to 
 the detritus borne down by an ocean current. 
 Thus, in Henderson’s Island, described by Captain 
 Beechy, mention is made of its being an upraised 
 coral island, and is thus described by Lyell: —‘ It 
 has a flat surface, and on all sides, except the rock, 
 is bounded by perpendicular cliffs, about fifty feet 
 high, composed entirely of dead coral, more or less 
 porous, honeycombed at the surface, and hardening 
 into a compact calcareous mass, which possesses 
 the fracture of secondary limestone,’* &c. | 
 The cliffs are considerably undermined by the 
 action of the waves, and some of them appear 
 on the eve of precipitating their superincumbent 
 weight into the sea. Now, though this descrip- 
 tion differs from the deposit under consideration, 
 inasmuch as it speaks of dead coral interspersed 
 through the mass, yet the general character of the 
 rock was so similar that there was some possibility 
 of its owing its origin to an upheaval of the coral 
 rock as a dead mass. Those at the rim of the 
 lagoon in Atoll Islands are described as being a 
 
 * Manual of Geology. Fifth edition. 
 
BASALTIC ROCKS. 157 
 
 mass of calcareous sand, heaped together with 
 broken shells and other débris. Of course the 
 texture of the crag was rather against such a sup- 
 position, but then it had been lying immediately 
 above the coral rock, and sometimes containing 
 larger portions of shells, with an occasional frag- 
 ment of what appeared to be coral, only too much 
 broken to be certainly classed as such. The only 
 thing that could settle the question was the exist- 
 ence of some intervening rock, which would show 
 them then to be quite distinct from one another. 
 This was found in the stratum of trap rock, upon 
 which, as I have already said, the cliffs of crag rest. 
 
 At one time, I could hardly imagine that the 
 trap really was underneath, because at Portland 
 Bay, a short distance off, basaltic rocks are seen on 
 the top of the highest cliffs, and, though these are 
 of coralline rock, yet, as there are extinct volcanoes 
 (Mount Napier and Mount Rouse) in the neigh- 
 bourhood, I imagined that the trap rock was lava, 
 which had flowed over the cliffs at Portland into 
 the sea, at a time when the coast had assumed its 
 present figure, and that the accumulation at Cape 
 Bridgewater was what had flowed to the bottom 
 of the cliffs, and been stopped further progress by 
 them. 
 
 And it was very difficult to arrive at the real 
 conclusion, because, on descending into the bay 
 now described, the basalt could be traced to the 
 foot of the other rock, and then seemed discon- 
 tinued, and the ordinary limestone took its place. 
 
58 TRAP ROCKS AT CAPE GRANT. 
 
 But a minute examination showed that the break - 
 in the strata was more apparent than real. What 
 seemed to be the crag was, in fact, a mere coating 
 of limestone, which was washed down by the rain 
 and by filtration, so as to completely cover the 
 trap rock underneath, and make it appear like 
 limestone. <A very little digging, however, com- 
 pletely removed it, so as to show the vesieular 
 volcanic rock beneath. It was curious to remark 
 how the lime had been washed down, so as to form 
 a sheet of stone over the underlying strata. 
 This, too, was done much in the same way that 
 stalagmite is deposited at the bottom of caves; and 
 when we bear in mind that every particle of the 
 stone must have been dissolved by water and then 
 redeposited, no moderate amount of time has been 
 consumed in forming the large crust of stone found 
 in the bay now described. 
 
 The trap is quite amygdaloidal, that. is, every 
 one of the vesicles in the stone has been filled with 
 crystallised carbonate of lime, rounded in the form 
 of the mould in which they occur, and of a trans- 
 lucent yellow colour. Some are of a reddish tint, 
 from the presence of iron, and they generally 
 radiate out in beautiful acicular crystals, from the 
 centre to the circumference; but more commonly 
 they are small, and, wherever a piece of the rock is 
 broken off, it appears as if studded all over with mi- 
 nute wax lentils. It is quite extraordinary how the 
 lime filters through the stone to form crystals in 
 the crevices. Break off the rock where you will, 
 
TRAP ROCKS AT CAPE GRANT. 159 
 
 and, how compact soever it may be, the centre is 
 sure to be impregnated with lime. 
 
 At the foot of the trap a very singular formation 
 is seen. The sesquioxide of iron, washed from 
 the voleanic rock, has acted as a cement to large 
 particles of shells, rounded, water-worn, and of 
 large size. This has formed a conglomerate of 
 intense tenacity. The fragments which protrude 
 look as if they could be picked off, but a great 
 exertion of strength will not detach them. The 
 shells preserve their colour in most instances, and 
 the conglomerate is like a very pretty mass of 
 flower petals. Mr. Darwin mentions a similar 
 deposit as occurring at Ascension Island. 
 
 To return to the upper crag, there can be little 
 doubt, then, that it is quite distinct from the coral 
 formation, and that it is identical with the deposit 
 found at Guichen Bay, because it lies like it directly 
 over the crag beds and under a hill, hereafter to be 
 shown as more modern deposit occurring in both 
 places. 
 
 There are other localities in which the same 
 strata are found, as, for instance, on the coast at 
 the mouth of the Glenelg, in Victoria; again at 
 Rivoli Bay, south of Guichen Bay; at Lacepede 
 Bay, to the north of the same place; besides on 
 many reefs of rocks that rise out from the coast, 
 and in spots here and there, scattered more or less 
 all over the district. Some of these latter possess 
 peculiarities worthy of note. ‘They are generally 
 on rising ground, lying immediately above the 
 
160 OTHER LOCALITIES. 
 
 coralline strata. This position clearly shows that 
 other parts there. have been which denudation 
 has removed, and the texture of the rock itself, 
 in such cases, gives the reason why it was able to 
 resist ravages which destroyed the continuance 
 of the beds. Thus, at Mount Gambier, at the edge 
 of a deep circular chasm, where the upper part of 
 the rock has fallen into a hollow, caused by the 
 erosion of underground streams, there is a good 
 section of the beds exposed. On the top of all are 
 seen the ashes from the extinct volcano in the 
 vicinity; underneath is this deposit, about sixteen 
 feet in thickness. Its appearance at a distance 
 would lead one to imagine that it was full of shells; 
 but it is not. There is nothing but a mass of broken 
 testacea, so confused and so broken that I have 
 never been able to recognise one of them, with 
 the exception of a large Ostraa. The face of the 
 stone is perforated on all sides with the borings of 
 the Lithodomi, and the stratification is as irregular 
 as running water could make it. The occurrence 
 of the oyster-shells made it doubtful if this deposit 
 did not belong to an after-stage of the coral reef, 
 distinct from these strata, because there is on the 
 top of nearly every limestone cliff, which has not 
 suffered much from denudation, a bed of oyster- 
 shells united with a few other fossils, such as the 
 asterite, and, what is not singular, considering the 
 date of the beds, clearly established by other fauna, 
 a Pecten Jacobeus. It is not with chalk but a 
 ferruginous yellow clay. It is seen at Portland 
 
NATURE OF THE DEPOSIT. 161 
 
 (under the trap), and therefore more ancient than 
 the upper crag at the top of the Murray cliffs, and 
 in many other places on the coast and inland. 
 But the oyster-shell bed at Mount Gambier really 
 belongs to a part of the upper deposit; and we 
 must therefore conclude that that fossil extended 
 
 to both beds. I should think, however, that the 
 _ oyster-shell bed is more recent than the coralline 
 rock, not only because it is always found above, 
 but because the fauna is so distinct. Probably 
 it was formed previous to the commencement of 
 deposition from the ocean current, but when the 
 coral was still subsiding, and a deep sea over it. 
 It may safely be said that the deposit must have 
 extended over a large area, for its remains are 
 distributed at intervals about the South-eastern 
 District. 
 
 We have now before us, therefore, a series of re- 
 mains which point very decidedly to the existence, 
 after the death of the coral, of an immense sea 
 bottom, covered by deposition from an ocean stream. 
 Before any conclusions are drawn from the facts 
 stated, several peculiarities in the rock must be 
 mentioned. 
 
 In the first place, the formation is one which, 
 from the description I have already given, is 
 perceived to vary much in its capability for 
 resisting the action of sea-water and the atmo- 
 sphere. The consequence is, that while some parts 
 are easily washed away by coast action, others 
 become compact and indurated. This, as the 
 
 M 
 
162 LIMESTONE CONCRETIONS. 
 
 ” 
 
 upheaval of the bed has proceeded, has given rise 
 to reefs of rocks far out to sea, the more dan- 
 gerous because they are rounded, and rarely visible 
 above water. ‘The coast from Rivoli Bay to Gui- 
 chen Bay is very perilous to navigators in con- 
 sequence, and a large reef of rocks to the north 
 side of the latter (Cape Jaffa reef) stretches out 
 to sea for more than twelve miles. 
 
 The appearance of these rocks is very peculiar. 
 Of some only a small pinnacle is spared, which 
 raises itself above the waves like a channel light- 
 house; others, again, have been a mass of table rock, 
 through which the sea has worn many passages, 
 giving them the appearance of bridges; and lastly, 
 they cluster together like a group of islands, with 
 flat tops and precipitous sides. The flatness of the 
 summits shows that they have been much denuded 
 before arriving at their present state; but even 
 amid their rounded form and worn outline the 
 cross stratification is still traceable. The nearer 
 they are to the coast the more rugged they become, 
 until the rocks which fringe the shore are as studded 
 with points and projections as a Gothic pinnacle or 
 a melting glacier. In fact, their tops have just 
 the appearance of a coral reef, quite as delicately 
 branched, and as varied. A mere description can 
 scarcely do justice to the strange appearance they 
 present. It seems as if the rocks were covered with 
 slender stone shrubs, tapering gradually to a point, 
 amid numerous branchlets and ramifications, or 
 as if the roof of a cave studded with stalactites 
 
LIMESTONE CONCRETIONS. 7 163 
 
 were turned upside down, and placed on the sea- 
 coast. Anything but spray must long ago have 
 broken them to pieces; and even then, how they 
 have been spared, while the surrounding rock has 
 been worn away, does not appear very plain. 
 
 Their origin I explain thus:—It would appear 
 to me that they must be the result of concretions 
 of lime and sand, caused by the percolating of 
 water through the beds prior to their upheaval. 
 This would harden some portions, and enable them 
 _ better to resist the action of water. Indeed, the 
 fact is evident that such a course has been in 
 operation in other places. 
 
 It will be remembered that, in the second chapter 
 of this work, reference is made to a kindred circum- 
 stance giving rise to concretions in the coral rock. 
 At a cliff at Guichen Bay, out of reach of the 
 sea, where portions of the rock have fallen away 
 and caused cavities, the sides are seen to be covered 
 with what appear to be roots of trees. Some are 
 thick, and twisted in various forms, more divided 
 at the top and thicker at the bottom, while others 
 are slender. ‘There is some difference between 
 them and the ones now alluded to in this chapter. 
 While the former are large and generally covered 
 with a fragmentary mass of shells, the latter are 
 small, and like chert inside, and covered with the 
 _ white powdery chalk outside. 
 
 The same peculiarity may be seen at Cape 
 Grant, already alluded to, where, as described, the 
 summit overhangs the lower part of the face of 
 
 M 2 
 
164 LIMESTONE CONCRETIONS. 
 
 the cliff, which is seen covered with these twisted 
 concretions, of all sizes and sometimes continuous 
 through many strata. Occasionally they jut out 
 from the face of the rock, so as to be easily mis- 
 taken for roots. I attribute their origin simply 
 to the filtration of water through the loose texture 
 of the crag, which has dissolved the lime as it 
 has passed through, and redeposited it round the 
 channel it formed for itself. 
 
 There are, however, other theories extant as to 
 the origin of similar beds, to which I must refer in 
 vindication of my own opinion. The similar ap- 
 pearances have been noticed by two persons, both 
 eminently qualified to give an opinion on such a 
 matter,—by Mr. Charles Darwin, in his ‘ Voyage of 
 the Beagle,’ and by Mr. Gregory, in his account of 
 the ‘ Exploration of Western Australia.’ It is with 
 the greatest diffidence I put forward my views 
 (apparently in opposition to theirs, but not so in 
 fact), that readers can see the statements and judge 
 for themselves. I may, however, state, that my 
 theory is the result of a longer consideration of the 
 locality I refer to than either gentlemen were able 
 to afford it, otherwise they would perhaps have 
 seen the truth of what is here stated. It must be 
 remarked, that I am not sure that Mr. Darwin 
 refers to the same rocks as I do, and, from his state- 
 ment and description, it is probable he does not; 
 but as he himself alludes to other portions of the 
 coast, very likely it may be imagined that his de- 
 scription was meant to account for all, especially as 
 
LIMESTONE CONCRETIONS. 165 
 
 they are so similar. I do not doubt that the 
 deposits of Western Australia were subaerial, 
 because of the land-shells, though I should be 
 more inclined to think that the casts were entirely 
 due to the percolation of water. But I am sure 
 that, had Mr. Darwin seen the deposits of Guichen 
 Bay and Portland after those of Bald Head, he 
 would very likely have set them down as iden- 
 tical. It is because the strata are so very similar 
 that I am anxious to point out the difference. 
 
 In describing the rocks about Western Aus- 
 tralia, he says: —‘ One day I accompanied Captain 
 Fitzroy to Bald Head, the place mentioned by so 
 many navigators, where some imagined they saw 
 corals, and others that they saw petrified trees 
 standing in the position in which they had grown. 
 According to our view, the beds have been formed 
 by the wind having heaped up fine sand, composed 
 of minute particles of shells and corals, during 
 which process branches and roots of trees, together 
 with many land-shells, became enclosed. The 
 whole then became consolidated by the percolation 
 of calcareous matter; and the cylindrical cavities 
 left by the decaying of the wood were thus also 
 filled up with a hard pseudo-stalactrial stone. 
 The weather is now wearing away the softer parts, 
 and, in consequence, the hard casts of the roots and 
 branches of the trees project above the surface, and, 
 in a singularly deceptive manner, resemble the 
 stumps of a dead thicket.’ 
 
 Now, the only particular in which this description 
 
166 CONCRETIONS NOT FOSSIL TREES. 
 
 differs from what I am describing, is the occurrence 
 of land-shells; these | have never met except in 
 the sand on the surface above the rock, which sand 
 was evidently derived from drift, being composed 
 of larger fragments of shells, in which the colour- 
 ing matter was nearly always preserved. The land- 
 shells were small species of Succinea. There were 
 also in this drift many twisted roots and branches 
 of mangroves and of other salsolaceous shrubs. 
 These, if the deposit gets hardened, may possibly 
 become like the roots at Bald Head; but then they 
 will present a very different appearance from those 
 described in the strata underneath. If the exist- 
 ence of land-shells in the Bald Head beds is as 
 certain as their absence from those in South Aus- 
 tralia, then we must clearly be treating of differ- 
 ent formations. At any rate, lest anyone should 
 imagine that our upper crag and its concretions 
 owe their origin to a similar cause, it will be useful 
 to state the reasons against such a theory. First, 
 however, it must be mentioned that Mr. Gregory, 
 the explorer, alludes to the same formation, and 
 adds that it is derived from a drift of sand and 
 shells from the coast which becomes hardened; and 
 further, that it may be seen in all stages of forma- 
 tion round the coast. Probably he alludes also to 
 our part of the coast; and this, again, is why I am 
 anxious to state the difference. | 
 It is true that sand is being drifted up in im- 
 mense quantities round parts of the coast of 
 Southern Australia, so as to bury trees and render 
 
CONCRETIONS NOT FOSSIL TREES. 167 
 
 considerable tracts unavailable. But this drift is 
 only composed of the finest particles of shells and 
 quartz, — such, in fact, as would only be carried 
 along by winds. I have examined many of these 
 ‘sand dunes,’ and a lengthened description of them 
 will be found in the next chapter. It will only be 
 necessary to mention that they contain no perfect 
 shells, as far as I am aware, and never bear signs of 
 stratification. Such a formation could scarcely be 
 hardened except by the permanent action of water. 
 Mere rain would not do it, and in fact does not; 
 for after the winter season we find these banks 
 as shifting and as loose as ever. 
 
 Then, with regard to the concretions, whatever 
 may be the case with those in Western Australia, 
 nothing but a very superficial observation would 
 bear out the notion that they have ever been trees 
 or roots; though they certainly have a strong resem- 
 blance in their roundness, and in the inequalities 
 of the surface which give the appearance of bark: 
 for, on being traced down, they generally continue 
 for twenty feet without a change in their diameter, 
 unless to become a little wider. Again, most of them 
 at some part of their course get accessions from 
 other percolations, and then go down in the form 
 of fluted columns, which is hardly consistent with 
 the notion of their being casts of trees. One 
 would certainly expect to find also some trace of 
 their vegetable origin, even though they be casts and 
 not silicified trees, but nothing of the kind is seen. 
 On breaking them, the interior is found to be a 
 
168 CONCRETIONS NOT FOSSIL TREES. 
 
 compact magnesian limestone, just what the filtra- 
 tion of water holding lime and magnesia in solution 
 would occasion. 
 
 I have been often taken to see what have been 
 termed fossil trees in the crag, but have always 
 returned disappointed. Sometimes persons have 
 shown me circular holes, about a foot in diameter, 
 lined with concentric rings of limestone, and I have 
 been asked, did I not consider them to be casts left 
 by the trees which have rotted away? But, liow- 
 ever delusive the appearances were, a reference to 
 the sea-coast showed the holes to be analogous to 
 the ‘sand-pipes’ spoken of in a former chapter. 
 Near the sea they may be noticed of various depths, 
 from one foot to five, and even more. ‘They are 
 always lined with concentric lamine of stone. 
 But the clearest proof that these strata have been 
 formed under water is given by their present dis- 
 tribution. If the theory of Messrs. Darwin and 
 Gregory were applicable to the upper crag of South 
 Australia, then it must have been formed on dry 
 land. But many portions of it are now under 
 the sea, and consequently there must have been 
 subsidence since its formation to place it there. 
 Now, it may be safely affirmed that there is no 
 evidence of such subsidence; on the contrary, a 
 regular course of upheaval since the formation of 
 the coralline beds is manifestly apparent. There- 
 fore we may reasonably conclude that the theory 
 will not meet the case of South Australia. 
 
 Some of the concretions may have resulted from 
 
“iy 
 a 
 
 na 
 
 CONCRETIONS NOT FOSSIL TREES. 169 
 
 coral, transformed by rolling and coast action into 
 rounded cylinders of calcareous fragments, and then 
 buried in the fragmentary detritus. Mr. Darwin 
 mentions such things as being common at Keeling 
 Atoll, and I have frequently picked up upon the 
 coast similar specimens. 
 
 It may seem a waste of time to dwell so long 
 on a comparatively unimportant point; but I have 
 been constrained to do so, not for the sake of con- 
 tradicting abler men than myself, who were pro- 
 bably quite right in the strata they referred to, 
 but in order to give an accurate account of the 
 origin of all the beds met with in the district I 
 have undertaken to describe. | 
 
 After having described the concretions which 
 make the coast more beautiful and less monotonous 
 than the South Australian coast usually is, other 
 peculiarities in the same strata soon claim our 
 notice. The soft nature of this rock has already fre- 
 quently been remarked. This has given rise to caves 
 of various depths; and the rocks are so corroded, 
 that one may wander long at Guichen Bay with- 
 out exploring all the winding passages and crevices 
 in the cliffs. Nearly all of them are more or less 
 undermined, and scarcely a year passes in which 
 huge masses of rock do not fall down. In 
 some places, where the sea has been beating away 
 at the end of a cave without having had much 
 effect upon the sides, the water has bored to the 
 surface by a kind of channel, through which every 
 wave which falls upon the shore sends up a column 
 
170 BLOW-HOLES. 
 
 of water into the air. These are the celebrated 
 ‘blow-holes,’ of which there are many round the 
 coast. Nothing can be more singular than their 
 effect, even on the calmest day. You stand at the 
 edge of a small round hole surrounded with stony 
 shrubs, and. every few minutes a roar is heard as | 
 the wave advances up the cave: it drives the air 
 before it, and amid the noise a final explosion shakes 
 the ground, dashing a cloud of silvery spray into 
 the air, after which the water falls splashing 
 around; there is a moaning recoil of the water, 
 and stillness returns. 
 
 It is curious to observe the effect of two antago- 
 nistic forces which are here at work. The land is 
 upheaving slowly, and the sea is rapidly eating 
 away the coast line; there can be little doubt that 
 the ocean would have the best of the struggle, and 
 soon indemnify itself for all the losses made by the 
 uplifting of her ancient bed, if the rock were all of 
 the same soft texture. But this is not the case, as 
 previously stated; and while the coast action has 
 eaten deeply into the line of cliffs, causing either 
 deep indentations or piles of ruins, some portions 
 are able to hold out in the form of the reefs men- 
 tioned. The coast suffers much more heavily in 
 winter than in summer; for it is quite unprotected 
 from the whole southern ocean, and when the west 
 and southerly gales prevail in winter, one day’s 
 wind is sufficient to send the sea upon the rocks 
 with a fearful swell, which bears down everything 
 before it. 
 
DENUDATION. 171 
 
 We might further enquire, What has become of 
 the detritus caused by these immense ravages? A 
 great deal of it, certainly, is drifted up in the form 
 of sand, which at Guichen Bay and Cape Bridge- 
 
 water forms low hills, extending to the northward, 
 
 and sometimes far inland. A portion of it, how- 
 
 ever, is redeposited on the tops of these rocks, 
 which are under water, and forms a thin stratum 
 of limestone, containing shells of existing spe- 
 cies. The description of these beds belongs to the 
 next chapter; but I may mention that they are 
 found distributed, more or less, over the whole dis- 
 trict. I have been the more anxious to dwell on 
 the waste that the rocks are undergoing, because it 
 will be presently seen that a great portion of them 
 has been entirely removed; and unless we were 
 previously aware of the way it is being worn down 
 by the sea, we should have a difficulty, even taking 
 into consideration its soft nature, in attributing 
 it all to denudation. 
 
 Let us now go through the history of the deposit 
 as the rocks present it to us. While the coral was 
 yet building, the land continued to subside, and reefs 
 which had been close to the shore became farther 
 and farther removed from it. By and by coasts 
 became islands, becoming smaller and smaller as 
 they went down, and in time little more than a ring 
 of coral was seen to mark the spot where they had 
 been. Island after island disappeared, until at last 
 the coral stood alone, a series of atolls and long 
 reefs, in a deep and opensea. Changes in the relative 
 
172 HISTORY OF THE DEPOSIT. 
 
 position of landand water would give rise tochanges 
 of temperature, and this would in time cause 
 new currents to flow in the ocean. Such currents 
 bring down sediment, or fine deposit of broken shells, 
 sand, and mud.. Those corals which had not been 
 killed by the alteration of temperature, or died by 
 the subsidence or gradual diminution of the size 
 of their reefs, would be destroyed by the sediment. 
 Perhaps these are not the only changes to which 
 their extinction is attributable. Changes in me- 
 teorological conditions would be so numerous after 
 the subsidence of a large continent, that we could 
 not say how many might cooperate to produce the 
 same result. Thus, a change of wind for any length 
 of time causes the destruction of many, by taking 
 them out of the reach of the water. Besides, we 
 do not as yet know all the conditions of animal life 
 well enough to assert that races have not their 
 duration of life as well as individuals. One thing 
 is certain, that in going through the past history, 
 as afforded by geology, we constantly meet with 
 evidences of the destruction of a whole race by 
 apparently natural causes. Bones are found in 
 immense numbers round lakes; fossils which are 
 plentiful in one stratum are quite absent from those 
 immediately above; and many other instances might 
 be given, all showing that a termination may come 
 to animal existence without any apparently extra- 
 neous causes. Even something analogous may be 
 seen in the human race, where new diseases are con- 
 stantly appearing, sweeping away thousands of 
 
= 
 7 
 
 OCEAN CURRENTS. 173 
 
 our fellow-creatures, and perhaps limiting the 
 duration of human life. 
 
 At any rate, we have evidence of two things in 
 the strata before us,— the death of the coral, and 
 its burial under a large deposit of sediment. The 
 subsidence seems to have continued long after the 
 reef-building had stopped, and long enough, indeed, 
 for the formation of the immense deposits of calca- 
 reous sandstone which now lie about the coast. 
 Some parts of the coral reef are covered to a depth 
 of sixty and seventy feet with the upper crag, all 
 formed of the thin diversely stratified sandstone. 
 Though the quantity of matter thus transported 
 must have been enormous, it did not necessarily 
 take such a long period to form as one would at 
 first be inclined to think. Currents sometimes 
 bear down an immense quantity of sediment in 
 a very short time, and though this gets dis- 
 tributed over a large surface, yet it would not 
 require very many years to cover a considerable 
 area to some depth. ‘Thus, then, it was that the 
 upper crag was formed. The sea rolled over the 
 reefs, carrying fragments of shells and sand from 
 shallow places; the white mud was gradually 
 darkened with the detritus it spread thicker 
 and thicker, now in sandbanks and undulating 
 hillocks, then a change would come; a stream from 
 another direction, perhaps, which would sweep a 
 level surface before depositing fresh material, leay- 
 ing a deep line of division in the stone which was 
 hardening underneath. Thus it went on forming 
 
174 ’ THE CRAG FORMED. 
 
 either in hugemounds or level surfaces, small pieces 
 of shell and fragments of sand adding and adding 
 their tiny proportions to the mass, until the work 
 was done, beautified by the percolation of water, 
 and the stone was raised from the sea, as we see 
 it now. | 
 
 The above is the description of the way the 
 stone was formed: we have yet to examine the 
 evidence of its partial destruction. It may have 
 been that the whole district, perhaps as far east as 
 Port Fairy, to the Murray mouth west, has been 
 covered with the same deposit, extending far inland, 
 and that afterwards the greater portion has been 
 removed, as the land was slowly raised from the 
 sea. This opinion is founded on the occurrence at 
 various parts of the country of small hillocks of 
 rock, perhaps an acre or so in extent, and some 
 few feet thick, identical in composition with the 
 upper crag, even to the concretions. There are 
 such spots at Mount Gambier, and again at many 
 parts of the Mosquito Plains. These are generally 
 very hard indeed, like granite, are much rounded 
 by the sea, and are generally perforated all over 
 by Lzthodomi or molluscs, which bore into stone 
 lying under the sea. Such borings show that 
 the stone itself has been exposed for a long time to 
 coast action, and its hardness explains how it was 
 able to resist decay and withstand wear, which 
 swept away the rest of the deposit. 
 
 Of course it cannot be said that the upper crag 
 was at one time spread over the coral rock in the 
 
THE CRAG RAISED. 175 
 
 same thickness as the strata seen at Guichen Bay 
 and elsewhere; the continued appearance of such 
 patches as those just described show clearly that 
 it was pretty generally distributed; but it is of the 
 nature of such strata to be partial, andto have heavy 
 banks in some places, while in others it is nearly 
 entirely wanting: neither at Cape Grant nor at 
 Guichen Bay are the strata of the same thickness 
 throughout. Sometimes they are piled up like sand- 
 banks, and at other places they are low. At Cape 
 Lannes, before alluded to, the rock is very hard, 
 while a narrow neck of the same strata which 
 joins it to the shore is comparatively softer, and is 
 rapidly being worn away; so that the cape may yet 
 stand out as an isolated rock. J rom this point is 
 also observed the varied hardness of the stone; 
 the coast behind is honeycombed into the most 
 fantastic forms, bearing no small resemblance to 
 ruined Druidical monuments amid ornamental 
 garden pottery. 
 
 In a rock where hardness is the exception rather 
 than the rule, it is not difficult to imagine how 
 such immense portions became removed. As the 
 upheaval went on, each separate portion was 
 exposed to the action of the coast, which not only 
 appears to have perfectly removed it, but to have 
 eaten for some distance into the coralline rock 
 underneath. The denudation thus effected must 
 have been enormous, even admitting that the 
 deposit was not general nor of great thickness 
 throughout; and much as it excites our admiration 
 
176 ITS SUBSEQUENT REMOVAL. 
 
 to see millions of tons of rock brought down by an 
 ocean stream, still more are we astounded to see 
 the same swept away again so completely, that, had 
 not a few traces remained here and there, we could 
 not have known even of the existence of what took 
 ages to form. 
 
 When such operations as these are brought to 
 light, we perceive the utter impossibility of arriving 
 at any correct data for a geological chronology. 
 Whole strata-may have been removed, and the 
 detritus stratified elsewhere, and this again de- 
 nuded; while not a vestige of these operations 
 remains, and the immense time occupied in their 
 accomplishment remains wholly unknown to us. 
 Thus it is again that such singular breaks occur in 
 the geological history of the earth in going from 
 one period to another. <A totally different fauna 
 will succeed within a few feet. The record of the 
 changes gone through has probably been denuded, 
 and left us with only the hiatus evident. Causa 
 latet, vis est notissima. 
 
 Before quitting the subject of their formation, 
 there are two or three things yet to be noticed. The 
 age of these rocks —that is, their position in the 
 geological series—is easily determined ; for though 
 there are no fossils, there is the record of these strata 
 immediately following the coral beds in their sub- 
 sidence: above, again, are more recent strata, to- 
 be made the subject of the next chapter. These 
 may here indicate a formation which has a strong 
 resemblance to our crag, namely, the Suffolk crag, 
 described by Charlesworth, Phillips, Lyell, &e. I. 
 
ITS AGE. 177 
 
 will here repeat what has been said in a former 
 chapter :—‘ The Suffolk crag is divisible into two 
 masses, the upper of which has been termed 
 the Red, and the lower the Coralline crag ; the 
 upper deposit consists chiefly of quartzose sand, 
 with an occasional intermixture of shells for the 
 most part rotted and sometimes comminuted. .. . 
 The lower or Coralline crag is of very limited ex- 
 tent, ranging over an area about twenty miles in 
 length and three or four in breadth. It 1s gene- 
 rally calcareous and marly; a mass of shells, bryo- 
 zoa and small corals, passing occasionally into 
 a soft building stone .... At some places in 
 the neighbourhood the softer mass is divided by 
 thin flags of hard limestone, and corals placed in 
 the upright position in which they grew. The Red 
 crag is distinguished by the deep ferruginous or 
 ochreous colour of its sands and fossils, the Coral- 
 line by its white colours.’ A little farther on, the 
 same author says :—‘ The Red crag, being formed in 
 a shallower sea, often resembles in structure a shift- 
 ing sandbank, its layers being inclined diagonally, 
 and the places of stratification being sometimes 
 directed, in the same quarry, to the four cardinal 
 points of the compass, as at Birtley.’ 
 
 Now this description would apply very well to 
 our crag. The colour, the stratification, the irre- 
 gularly deposited comminuted particles resting on a 
 white coralline rock, would seem to be identical with 
 the deposits treated of inthis and the former chapter. 
 But mineral composition alone is a very weak guide 
 
 N 
 
178 IDENTICAL WITH SUFFOLK CRAG. 
 
 in these matters. It is upon the fauna we must 
 depend; and in this, as far as I can judge, they are 
 not dissimilar. But still it is interesting to observe 
 that a coralline rock, like that of Australia, has 
 been followed by a sandy deposit like our crag. 
 
 That similar fossils should be deposited under 
 different local circumstances, so as to have an 
 almost entirely different mineral character, is not 
 at all uncommon; but that dissimilar strata, con- 
 taining fauna, related to each other by a similar 
 geological epoch, should be deposited under pre- 
 cisely similar circumstances, is a remarkable in- 
 stance, as stated in last chapter. Professor Forbes 
 concluded that the Suffolk crag was not found at 
 any great depth of sea, probably at not more than 
 from twenty-five to thirty fathoms; but yet he 
 would not call the deposit a lateral one, because 
 it might have been fifty miles out to sea. 
 
 The same might, perhaps, have been said of our 
 crag, did it contain any fossils. But as there are 
 none, and as the portions of shells are all very finely 
 broken, perhaps the depth of the sea and the distance 
 from land were much greater than that of the Suf- 
 folk crag. The sea might have been in course of 
 upheaval during the formation of some parts of it. 
 I should imagine this from the layer of trap upon 
 which a portion is stratified. Volcanic emanations 
 are only usually met with when the land is uprising. 
 But this subject more properly belongs to another 
 part of this work which treats of the volcanoes. 
 
 In conclusion, I must mention a few facts with 
 
CONCLUSION. 179 
 
 reference to the water-level here. Generally fresh 
 water is found on the top of the crag when covered 
 by more modern strata. If it is not found there it 
 must be sunk for until the compact portion of the 
 coralline rock is reached. At Mount Gambier the 
 water seems to preserve a uniform height above 
 the sea, so that the depth of a well will depend 
 upon whether it is sunk on rising or low ground. 
 The water is very hard, and contains large quan- 
 tities of magnesia. It is singularly clear and pel- 
 lucid, but, when more than forty feet in depth, it 
 exhibits as rich a blue as the deepest parts of the 
 ocean. 
 
 The colour of water will very often depend on 
 the bottom upon which it rests. Thus I have seen 
 the sea a light green when out of soundings, and 
 many hundred miles from the African coast; and I 
 have seen the sea a deep blue at thirty fathoms, 
 close to a basaltic coast: but at Mount Gambier it 
 appears to be the nature of the water ; for,no matter 
 how white the limestone beneath may be, the water 
 if of any depth is deep blue. I believe Bunsen has 
 published reasons why blue is the natural colour of 
 water; but, I think, if a careful examination were 
 made, its colour would be found to depend upon 
 the salts it holds in solution. 
 
 I may add here, that when approaching the 
 Australian coast, we took numerous soundings, 
 
 N 2 
 
180 CONCLUSION. 
 
 and found that at about ninety fathoms (540 feet) 
 the lead came up covered with a loose fine deposit 
 of broken shells and sand exactly like the crag; this 
 might give some idea of the depth at which such 
 strata might be found. I have found no Foram- 
 nifera, though doubtless they exist in the deposit; 
 under the microscope, it appeared as if composed 
 entirely of small fragments of shells. 
 
181 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE REEF’S SUBSEQUENT HISTORY. 
 
 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS.——-ASPECT OF THE AUSTRALIAN 
 COAST. ——SAND.——-SAND FORMATION OF CORNWALL.— ORIGIN 
 OF AUSTRALIAN SAND. —ITS COMPOSITION. — UPPER LIMESTONE 
 AND SHELL DEPOSIT.—LOCALITIES IN WHICH THE LATTER 
 OCCUR.—STONE HUT RANGE. — OBSERVATIONS ON THE FAUNA 
 OF THE DEPOSIT.—LAKES ON THE COAST.—THE COORONG.— 
 LAKE HAWDON.—LAKE ELIZA.—-LAKE ST. CLAIR.—— LAKE 
 GEORGE. — LAKE BONNEY.—GERMAN FLAT.—MOUTH OF THE 
 MURRAY.— UPHEAVAL OF THE AUSTRALIAN COAST.— THIS 
 PROVED FROM THE COAST LINE——-FROM SOUTH AUSTRALIAN 
 RIVERS, AND ESPECIALLY THE REEDY CREEK.—-UPHEAVAL STILL 
 GOING ON.—-PERIODS OF REST.—SIX CHAINS OF HILLS. — 
 TERRACES FORMED FROM OLD SEA BEACHES.—SAND DUNES.— 
 NOT HARDENING INTO STONE.— SIMILAR FORMATIONS IN SUF- 
 FOLK.—LAKE SUPERIOR AND BAHIA BLANCA.—WHY GENERALLY 
 ASSOCIATED WITH SANDSTONE. 
 
 E have hitherto been considering the under- 
 lying rocks of the districts. Though they 
 
 often crop out, and are always met with only at 
 avery few feet from the surface, yet they may pro- 
 perly be termed underlying, because they are geo- 
 logically more ancient than the deposits to be con- 
 sidered in this chapter. We have seen just now how 
 the whole series of strata, from the coralline to the 
 crag, resembles the series that is found in Suffolk, 
 as far as mineral composition and general aspect 
 are concerned. ‘This correspondence is the less 
 
182 NEW SUBAERIAL DEPOSIT. 
 
 singular, once that the coral reef theory is ad- 
 mitted, for we find that round most atolls, barren 
 reefs, &c., the broken coral generally becomes 
 formed into a hard rock, like ferruginous sandstone, 
 which is very compact, though composed of large 
 grains. Perhaps some patches of crag found in the 
 interior were formed thus, contemporaneously with 
 the coral, and are therefore distinct from the crag — 
 of the coast: but it must not be thought that the 
 whole is of the same origin; its thickness, its stra- 
 tification, and its general texture preclude such @ 
 supposition. 
 
 We are now about to consider a deposit with 
 which coral has had nothing to do; it is neither so 
 extensive nor so thick as the others we have been 
 considering, and it is the last in the geological 
 chronology of this part of Australia. 
 
 Its description must necessarily be rather lengthy. 
 There are so many features, so many details to be 
 considered with it, that even a mere enumeration 
 would be long. The details, however, are mostly 
 of an interesting character, and their consideration 
 will repay the importance allotted to them. 
 
 As we have now to deal with the surface, let 
 us begin with the coast line. The aspect -of the 
 coast of Australia, like that of Egypt, Arabia, and 
 many other countries, is low and sandy. Places 
 here and there, like Cape Otway, Cape Jervis, and 
 Port Jackson, besides other small spots, expose a 
 bold and rocky front to the sea, but generally only 
 sand-hills are seen, dotted here and there with dark- 
 ereen patches, but commonly forlorn and uninviting. 
 
SAND. 183 
 
 It appears strange how early discoverers could 
 entertain a good opinion of the country, when all 
 that met their view was an interminable line of sand 
 and scrub, rendered unapproachable not only by 
 its cheerless loneliness, but also by the large white 
 surfs which boomed eternally along it with a 
 gloomy roar. Hills and trees might appear in the 
 distance, but really they are the exception on the 
 east coast, and even these are thickly wooded 
 with vegetation which is anything but verdant or 
 promising. 
 
 Let us commence, then, with the sand. This 
 covers the shores, not for a few hundred yards, 
 as on most beaches, but sometimes a mile or more 
 inland. Seldom are rocks seen amongst these 
 hills; if there are any, the sand covers them,—not 
 a fine white silicious sand, but coarse grained, 
 containing many small fragments of shells, of a 
 light-yellow colour, and composed nearly entirely 
 of carbonate of lime. It has been mentioned 
 in the second chapter of this work, that a great 
 part of the district now described is covered 
 with a calcareous sand. As we know that the 
 whole coast has been upheaved, perhaps some 
 of it has been derived from coast action. At 
 all events, for twelve miles inland sand is com- 
 mon, even though covered with grass; and that 
 this has been sea-sand there can be little doubt, 
 because it is interspersed with sea-shells such 
 as are now found upon the coast. Considering 
 its calcareous nature, it is a matter of astonish- 
 ment that it has not been consolidated into a com- 
 
184 SAND. 
 
 pact rock. But it has not been. On the contrary, it 
 is so loose as to be blown about by every breath of 
 wind, giving rise to the phenomena of sand dunes 
 (like those on the Suffolk coast), which will be 
 more fully noticed when I come to speak of up- 
 heaval. 
 
 Such sand might, however, be hardened into a 
 stone. Instances of this are met with at Gua- 
 daloupe and on the coast of Cornwall. The latter 
 is worth citing here, more especially as it shows 
 how a subaerial deposit might resemble the crag 
 mentioned in the preceding chapter. It is thus 
 described in the appendix to Mantell’s ‘ Wonders 
 of Geology :’ — 
 
 ‘A sandstone occurs in various parts of the 
 northern coast of Cornwall which affords a most 
 instructive example of a recent formation, since 
 we here actually detect nature at work, in con- 
 verting loose sand into solid rock. A yery con- 
 siderable portion of the northern coast of Cornwall 
 is covered with calcareous sand, consisting of 
 minute particles of comminuted shells, and in 
 some places has accumulated in quantities so great 
 as to have formed hills of from forty to sixty feet 
 in elevation. 
 
 ‘In digging into these sand-hills, or upon the 
 occasional removal of some part of them by the 
 winds, the remains of houses may be seen; and 
 in places where churchyards have been over- 
 whelmed, a great number of human bones may 
 be found. The sand is supposed to have been 
 
SAND, 185 
 
 originally brought from the sea by hurricanes, 
 probably at a remote period. 
 
 ‘At the present moment, the progress of its 
 ‘Incursion is arrested by the growth of Arundo 
 arenacea. ‘The sand first appears in a slight but 
 Increasing state of aggregation on several parts 
 of the shore in the Bay of St. Ives; but on ap- 
 proaching the Groythian river it becomes more 
 extensive and indurated. On the shore, opposite 
 Godrevy Island, an immense mass of it occurs, 
 of more than a hundred feet in length, and from 
 ten to twenty feet in depth, containing entire shells 
 and fragments of clay-slate; it is singular that 
 the whole mass assumes a striking appearance of 
 stratification. In some places it appears that at- 
 tempts have been made to separate it, probably 
 for the purpose of building, for several old houses 
 in Groythian are built of it. 
 
 ‘The rocks in the vicinity of this recent formation 
 in the Bay of St. Ives are greenstone and clay-slate, 
 alternating with each other. The clay-slate is in a 
 state of rapid decomposition, in consequence of 
 which large masses of the hornblende rock have 
 fallen in various directions and given a singular 
 character of picturesque rudeness to the scene. 
 This is remarkable in the rocks which constitute 
 Godrevy Island. It is around the promontory of 
 New Kaye that the most extensive formation of 
 sandstone takes place. 
 
 ‘Here it may be seen in different stages of indu- 
 ration, from a state in which it is too feeble to 
 
186 CORNWALL SANDSTONE. 
 
 be detected from the rock upon which it reposes, 
 to hardness so considerable that it requires a very 
 violent blow from a sledge to break it. Buildings 
 are here constructed of it; the church of Cran- 
 stock is entirely built with it; and it is also 
 employed for various articles of domestic and 
 agricultural uses. : 
 
 ‘The geologist, who has previously examined 
 the celebrated specimen from Guadaloupe, will be 
 struck with the great analogy which it bears to 
 this formation. Suspecting that masses might be 
 found containing human bones, if a diligent search 
 were made in the vicinity of those cemeteries 
 which have been overwhelmed, I made some in- 
 vestigations in those spots, but, 1 regret to add, 
 without success. 
 
 ‘The rocks upon which the sandstone reposes 
 are alternations of clay, slate, and slatey limestone. 
 The inclination of the beds is SSW., and at an 
 angle of 40°. Upon a plain formed by the edges 
 of these strata lies a horizontal bed of rounded 
 pebbles, cemented together by the sandstone which 
 is deposited immediately above them, forming a bed 
 of from ten to twelve feet in thickness, containing 
 fragments of slate and entire shells, and exhibiting 
 the same appearance of stratification as that noticed 
 in St. Ives’ Bay. 
 
 ‘Above this sandstone lie immense heaps of drifted 
 sand. But it is on the western side of the promon- 
 tory of New Kaye, in Fishel Bay, that the geologist 
 will be most struck with this formation, for here no 
 
CORNWALL SANDSTONE. 187 
 
 other rock is in sight. The cliffs, which are high, 
 and extend for several miles, are entirely composed 
 of it; they are occasionally intersected by veins and 
 dykes of breccia. In the cavities, calcareous sta- 
 lactites of rude appearance, opaque, and of a grey 
 colour, hang suspended. The beach is covered with 
 disjointed fragments, which have been detached 
 from the cliffs above, and many of PEL weigh 
 two or three tons.’* 
 
 Astrea. 
 (Found on South 
 Australian coast.) 
 
 Faseicularia. 
 (Now found on South Australian coast.) 
 
 The sand of our Australian coast appears to have 
 been washed up from the sea, and not derived from 
 a hurricane. It is important to enquire how; for 
 though sand on coasts is a very ordinary thing, yet 
 the large quantities of it here are worth some at- 
 tention. Some must be derived from the rocks that 
 are being washed away, and the rest from the shells 
 and corals which frequent the shore. There is an 
 Astrea rather common on the coast, and some Nul- 
 
 * From a Memoir by Dr. Paris, in the Transactions of the Royal 
 Geological Society of Cornwall. 
 
188 SAND DUNES. 
 
 lipores exceedingly so. Corallines are also very 
 often met with, including probably the rare Fascv- 
 cularia.* The fragments of these, broken small by 
 the beach surf, raise the mounds of sand in such 
 small quantities that it soon dries and remains 
 light without consolidating: the wind carries it 
 farther inland. , 
 
 It is to be remarked, that a coral shore always 
 gives rise to acalcareous sand. Thus, in the atolls, 
 the sea breaks upon the living coral, and then 
 spreads over a sort of terrace composed of the har- 
 dened calcareous sandstone before alluded to. 
 Finally, it washes up a belt of sand upon which the 
 cocoa-nut palm and shrubs grow. The sand-hills 
 thus raised are described as being loose, white, and 
 calcareous, seldom rising to more than twelve feet 
 above the level of the sea. The banks on the Aus- 
 tralian coast do not rise very high. Occasionally, 
 indeed, a mound will attain the height of 150 feet, 
 or sand may drift until it forms a slope of even 
 much greater altitude, but the general nature of 
 such formations is low and even. 
 
 This sand, where it accumulates on large sand 
 drives, is very yellow in colour, and seems to consist 
 almost entirely of the broken fragments of shells. 
 On most parts of the coast it is white and rather 
 fine. Under the microscope this latter is very in- 
 
 * The Fascicularia was thought to be peculiar to the Crag, and a 
 characteristic fossil. The one engraved is common enough on the 
 coast, though, curiously enough, it is not found’as a fossil inthe Mount 
 
 Gambier limestone. It must be said, however, thatit does not+corres- 
 pond in every particular with the Fascicularia of the Crag. 
 
SAND DUNES. 189 
 
 teresting. It teems with the remains of animal life. 
 First, the spines of Asteride and Echini are easily 
 separated; then come fragments of Bryozoa and 
 shells. After this, foraminifera are traced, some- 
 times of a size sufficiently large to be picked out 
 with the help of a small pocket-lens, sometimes so 
 minute as to be with the utmost difficulty trans- 
 ferred to the microscope; but the most common (so 
 much so, that the sand may be said to consist 
 principally of it) are sponge spicula, as clear as 
 glass and of every shape, but mostly circular and 
 triradiate. The proportion of mere inorganic si- 
 lex is very small, so that these immense masses 
 of sand which belt the coast for thousands of miles 
 may be regarded as a mass of microscopic organi- 
 sation. How many millions of animals must they 
 not contain! 
 
 Thus far one feature of the coast. It has been 
 said just now that limestone is uncommon on these 
 hills; and indeed, wherever it is seen, it is only in 
 breaks in the banks which cover it: but at a moderate 
 depth, and even on the tops of the hills, for twelve 
 miles inland, on the crag sometimes, and composing 
 hill-sides itself in some places, a smooth white lime- 
 stone is found, very compact and pure. ‘This is 
 another formation which overlays the upper crag. 
 From the crag it may be distinguished by its never 
 being granular, and from the coralline by being 
 more compact, and of a dull yellow colour ap- 
 proaching to brown. It is never more than about 
 three feet thick, sometimes not evensomuch. This 
 
190 RECENT LIMESTONE. 
 
 makes it directly the opposite to the coralline 
 rock, which is always (except where the strata thin 
 out) of very considerable thickness; the difference 
 is owing to the different circumstances under which 
 they were formed. The coralline was deposited 
 during a period of subsidence, when the strata had 
 ample time and fauna to thicken it, and no dis- 
 turbing cause. The Post-Plelocene (as we shall 
 henceforth term the deposit) was spread out over 
 rocks which were continually being taken out of 
 the reach of the waves by upheaval, and therefore 
 could not attain any considerable thickness. 
 
 As it is, however, it is full of shells, but little 
 altered in the composition from what they were 
 when in the sea, sometimes even preserving their 
 colours, and all of them of species that are now 
 found on the coast. It is as well to observe here 
 that this shelly limestone often overlays the upper 
 crag, and therefore adds another argument against 
 the subaerial nature of that deposit. The shells, 
 though strictly identical with those of the coast, 
 are not in the same proportionate num- 
 bers. Thus a person might dig for hours 
 around the rock, and yet find nothing 
 but a Venus evalbata and a Cerithium.* 
 Now these shells, though common on the 
 = coast, are far from being the most common. 
 What most frequently is found upon this 
 part of the South Australian shore is a large 
 
 * Sometimes immense masses of rock are formed entirely by the 
 shell represented in the engraving. 
 
RECENT LIMESTONE. 191 
 
 Trochus, also a Conus and a Jvttorina, and 
 these are rarely met with in the strata. These 
 facts show that some alteration has taken place 
 in the coast fauna since the rocks were depo- 
 sited. 
 
 The place where the deposit is seen to best ad- 
 vantage is on a range which, without exception, 
 runs from two to twelve miles all round the coast, 
 from the Coorong to within a few miles of Portland, 
 in Victoria. But itis not confined to this range; 
 sometimes between it and the sea there is another 
 and less extensive line of hills, and then the space 
 between them is a flat filled with salt and fresh- 
 water lakes. These flats and the hills between them 
 and the sea are covered with the same recent shells, 
 but there is no limestone except in patches here and 
 there on the edges of the lakes or on some low hills, 
 and the shells (for they can scarcely be called 
 fossils) lie in loose sand or in thick beds with little 
 or no sand. It is impossible to exaggerate the 
 enormous quantities of shells which are sometimes 
 seen on the flats. The roads are in consequence 
 firm and dry, just like the shelly walks of a park, 
 and when occasionally a strong wind tears up a 
 tree by the roots, the fibres have become so inter- 
 laced with these spoils of the ocean as to look like 
 some large article of fancy-work. On the coast, 
 too, amid the sand-hills, shells are again seen, not 
 lying here and there, as though brought by human 
 agency, but regularly stratified into the mass, so as 
 to show, when exposed, regular layers like strata. 
 
192 POST-PLEIOCENE DEPOSITS. 
 
 It may be remarked, in passing, that this fact affords 
 another proof that the crag cannot owe its origin to 
 the hardening of drift sand, as sea-shells are never 
 found whole in it, and even the fragments of such 
 are not regularly stratified; but here we have sand 
 clearly owing its origin to drift, with regular 
 layers of sea-shells, thinly scattered, it is true, but 
 showing that each portion which was exposed was 
 hable to have sea-shells deposited upon it. 
 
 Returning now to the range parallel with the 
 coast, sea-shells are found upon the flat at its back. 
 How much farther inland they are seen I cannot 
 precisely say, but they have been found by me em- 
 bedded in limestone at least seventeen miles away 
 from the sea. It will be remembered, that in 
 describing the features of the south-eastern dis- 
 trict, a series of ranges, running north and south, 
 about twelve miles apart, with flats between, 
 were spoken of. ‘These will have to be referred 
 to again when speaking of upheaval, as probably 
 they have all formerly been coast lines. Now 
 the flat at the back of the range nearest the 
 coast is more or less covered with shells, as just 
 stated, but they are found in a peculiar manner. 
 The soil is soft black or whitish clay, and the lime- 
 stone does not lie continuously underneath, but 
 here and there are patches ‘caked’ into the surface, 
 just as if it had dried on the margin of a lake. The 
 fossils, too, are of a mingled description, being 
 partly fresh water and partly marine. 
 
 Now this flat was in all probability an estuary, 
 
POST-PLEIOCENE DEPOSITS. 195 
 
 because at one place, where the fresh-water shells 
 are commonest, there is a gap in the range about 
 six miles in width. This gap is at present occupied 
 by an immense morass called Lake Hawdon, which 
 is much longer than its width, and which is nar- 
 rowest at the above-mentioned gap. There canbe no 
 doubt that the range (let us, for convenience, call it 
 the Stone Hut Range, by which name it is known 
 by residents) has, until very recently, been a coast 
 range. The shells on its summit, the shell banks 
 to the west of it, and the smooth even way it is 
 washed on the coast side, besides having the stone 
 perforated by the Lzthodomi on the same side, all 
 declare this. The gap then would allow an opening 
 to the flat behind, which would be alternately filled 
 with salt and brackish water, for the quantity of 
 fresh water which settles on these flats in the rainy 
 season would materially affect an inlet which only 
 received occasional accessions from the sea, and this 
 we may, from the shallowness of the gap, suppose 
 to have been the case. 
 
 Traces of recent shells have been found, more or 
 less, on all the ranges to a distance of fifty miles from 
 the coast; farther than this they do not, however, 
 extend, and the country becomes volcanic. We will 
 now confine ourselves to those localities nearer the 
 coast, where the shells are loose and numerous, and 
 attended with peculiarities which will demand some 
 lengthened consideration. Before doing so, there 
 are a few remarks to be made with reference to the 
 deposits where the shells are embedded in the lime- 
 
 0 
 
194 POST-PLEIOCENE DEPOSITS. 
 
 stone. Itcan hardly be called a formation, because 
 as yet it is not completed, and the sea is even now 
 stratifying the same fauna into limestone on the 
 coast. It is a thing of the present rather than the 
 past. Although I have examined several hundred 
 specimens, I have not found one that does not exist 
 at present on the coast. Itis true, as before stated, 
 that some species are not so common now in the 
 same localities as they were when parts of the lime- 
 stone were forming, but there is no difference 
 between them. 
 
 The following is a list of the most common 
 genera now found at Guichen Bay. Those marked 
 with an asterisk are very common in the limestone, 
 and those marked with a cross are most common 
 on the coast:—+Purpura, Fasciolaria, Haliotis, 
 + Turbo, + Conus, Bulla, Ampulla, Natica, Pectun- 
 culus, Hyponia, * Venus, Iridina, Nerita, Panopea, 
 Pleurotoma, Fissurella, Cerithium, Turritella, Cy- 
 prea, Nassa, Trochus, *Phasianella, * Voluta, 
 Mactra, Donax, Ostrea. Very many of these are 
 common to both, and, though none are present in 
 the limestone and absent on the coast, some are ab- 
 sent in the limestone which are very common on 
 the coast. The limestone in which they are found 
 makes excellent lime, and is a good and durable 
 building stone, easily dressed. 
 
 The coast is the locality where the circumstances 
 under which the deposit has been formed are best 
 understood. A reference to the accompanying map 
 will show better than a description how the whole 
 
COAST LAKES. 195 
 
 of this part of the South Australian coast is covered 
 with lakes and inlets, not running up into the in- 
 terior, as in a mountainous country, but having their 
 greatest lengths parallel with the coast. There is 
 the Coorong, which is an arm of the sea, having 
 its opening not very far from the Murray Mouth, 
 running parallel with the sea in a narrow steep for 
 miles, and terminating in a little creek which runs 
 some distance inland. There is only a narrow strip 
 of sand-hills between this singular piece of water 
 and the sea for the whole distance ; in fact, it looks 
 more like a fringing reef to the coast than anything 
 else. Next comes a little series of lakes, which are 
 hardly worth mentioning, any more than that they 
 bear out on a small scale the prevailing character 
 of this coast. Next comes Lake Hawdon, which, 
 as | have said, is more a morass than a lake, and 
 which is an exception to the general rule, of the 
 greatest length being parallel with the coast line; 
 but, as it once evidently occupied a part of the flat 
 behind the Stone Hut Range, and probably ex- 
 tended a long way behind, this exception is more 
 apparent than real. 
 
 Next in succession comes Lake Eliza, a fine 
 sheet of salt water, very shallow, and rapidly 
 drying up. This latter lake is separated by a 
 very small strip of land from Lake St. Clair, 
 which is smaller than the former, but possesses 
 much the same features. Then there is Lake’ 
 George, an irregularly-formed sheet of fresh 
 water, whose banks are reedy and muddy. It has 
 
 o 2 
 
196 COAST LAKES. 
 
 two or three fresh-water creeks leading into it, but 
 there is no apparent outlet between it and the sea. 
 Finally, there is Lake Bonney, a long narrow sheet 
 of fresh water, twenty-five miles long, but in few 
 places more than about two miles broad; it is shal- 
 low, and surrounded on all sides by moderately 
 high banks. 
 
 As all these lakes have distinct peculiarities, a 
 separate description for each will be necessary, more 
 especially the last one mentioned, which has so 
 many various features as to be well worth attentive 
 consideration. Let it be remarked, however, that 
 though some of these lakes are marshy while others 
 are clear and open, some fresh and some salt, they 
 mostly lie in the flat which runs between the coast 
 range and the sea. It may also be stated, that at 
 Guichen Bay, there is a small range very close to 
 the coast, and between this and the sea there exists 
 a succession of small lagoons, some deep, with steep 
 banks, while others are mere shallow pools. The 
 water in them is fresh, or nearly so. ound their 
 edges there is a stone in course of formation, which 
 will account for the patches of limestone that are 
 occasionally met with in the flats farther inland. 
 From the appearance of the edges of these. lagoons 
 one would naturally conclude that they were salt, 
 for they have all round a white crust just like salt. 
 This crust is a sort of white lime and clay, quite 
 hard and rough (enamellated like mollipora coral) 
 for about an inch, but underneath soft and bogey 
 to a considerable depth. It is full of shells, mostly 
 marine, but some fresh-water, and contains abun- 
 
COAST LAKES. 197 
 
 dance of a white chara or conferva, which grows 
 plentifully on the lagoons. A person may in some 
 places walk to the water’s edge on the outer crust, 
 but in others it is treacherous, and underneath the 
 white sand is so deep as to render any submersion 
 rather dangerous.. Melaleuca and mangrove shrubs 
 frequently grow on the edges, and their roots, &c., 
 sometimes remain in the stone and mud beneath. 
 It can easily be seen how the study of localities 
 such as these may throw a light upon peculiarities 
 in the flats far removed from the sea. If, hereafter, 
 upheaval should move these lagoons farther inland, 
 they will dry up, and these large sheets of thin 
 laminated limestone, enamellated or botryoidal on 
 the surface, and containing shells — such limestone 
 as now, in fact, is found farther from the sea — will 
 be the result. The banks round these lagoons are 
 not high, and in very rough weather the sea has 
 been known to rise above the sand-hills which fringe 
 the coast, and rush into them, thus making their 
 character alternate between salt and fresh water. 
 To commence with the Coorong, a glance at its 
 appearance as it is shown upon the map would lead 
 one to believe that it has formerly been a fringing 
 reef, whose corals have been destroyed by upheaval. 
 Such is the aspect of fringing reefs in the Mauri- 
 tius which have undergone that change, and they 
 are described as mere sandbanks, which lie far out 
 to sea, more like the earthwork of a fortification 
 than anything else. I have never been able to 
 give a sufficiently minute examination to affirm 
 this positively, but I can see one or two objections 
 
198 THE COORONG. 
 
 to the hypothesis. Coral such as would form frin- 
 ging reefs does not occur in any part of the south 
 coast at present, neither has coral ever been found 
 in situ on the Coorong itself. Again, a reef of this 
 description must necessarily have given rise to a 
 coral débris farther inland, and this also is want- 
 ing. Another more probable theory may, perhaps, 
 explain this interesting geographical feature. It 
 may have been a long sandbank under the sea, 
 which has been raised by upheaval, while the 
 intervening low land between it and the coast is 
 as yet covered by water. 
 
 The basis of the bank may be a barrier reef of 
 the crag period, which would serve as an obstruc- 
 tion upon which sand would gather, or it may 
 have been an outcropping ridge of rock, but, at 
 any rate, its texture and general features ren- 
 der the bank theory far more probable and con- 
 sistent with its appearance. Some persons have 
 imagined that it was the former bed of the Murray, 
 but an inspection of its bank, as well as its south 
 termination, will at once show that this view is 
 quite untenable. 
 
 From the Coorong, the next lake of any im- 
 portance to the south is Lake Hawdon. ‘This has 
 been already described. It may be added, that it 
 is, with small exceptions, covered with long dense 
 reeds, and that while at its western end sea-shells 
 abound, at its eastern there are some fresh-water 
 and sea-shells intermixed. 
 
 From Lake Hawdon’ to Lake Eliza is about six 
 
LAKES ELIZA, ETC. 199 
 
 miles. The latter is a good broad sheet of sea-green 
 water, with a fine sandy bottom some miles long, and 
 nowhere deeper than about eight feet. It is rapidly 
 drying up. This is presumed from the banks, 
 which are very flat for a long way round the 
 edges, sometimes a mile, covered with black mud 
 and the caked limestone already described when 
 the lagoons were spoken of. Long before the 
 water is reached, the banks become marshy, and 
 are covered with a very dense thicket of mela- 
 leuca, callistemon, mangrove, &c., and the whole 
 of the black mud, as well as the dry banks, are 
 covered with sea-shells as thickly as the coast, and 
 even more so. 
 
 Lake St. Clair is only divided from Lake Eliza 
 by a narrow strip of land, which is sandy, and as 
 thickly covered with shells as any other part. There 
 can be no doubt that they formed one lake within a 
 very recent period, because, supposing the water only 
 to have extended as far as the black mud and shells 
 round Lake Eliza showed that it did extend, there 
 would have been quite sufficient to have covered 
 the line of division between them. In that case, 
 they would have formed one long strip of water 
 smaller than the Coorong, but somewhat similar to 
 Lake Bonney. 
 
 It may have been connected with the sea, suppo- 
 sing the water to have been much higher (for which 
 supposition there is good reason), for though be- 
 tween one part of the lakes and the sea there is a 
 high range of sand-hills and limestone ridges, at the 
 
200 ANCIENT BEACH. 
 
 northern end there is only a low marshy flat fringed 
 with sand-hills, and running to one or two lakes 
 which are more or less connected, until the sand- 
 hills of the coast are reached. The soil on this 
 flat is black, and supports a rank grass, but sea- 
 shells are seen on the surface, and at a very small 
 depth below they abound. If this was an arm 
 of the sea, and Lakes Eliza and St. Clair were a 
 deep bay, the Stone Hut Range, which rises 
 to several hundred feet above the sea-level, must 
 have been a beach, and never were signs more 
 strikingly visible than those which still remain to 
 give proof of the fact. 
 
 The hills rise abruptly from the beautiful level 
 flat (except a gentle slope up to them, as in all 
 beaches ), and the limestone of which they are com- 
 posed is washed smooth and clean, besides being 
 perforated at the base by,the borings of Lithodomi. 
 There are ample marks of coast action on the stone, 
 such as worn and weathered surface, deep circular 
 hollows or wells, such as are found now on the coast, 
 and lines with the same laminated limestone. There 
 is also, at the foot, a deep deposit of sand and 
 shells, broken and comminuted by beach action, and 
 finally, what 1s most convincing, parts of the salt 
 water of Lake Eliza still wash the foot of more 
 southern portions. So evenly has the water cut 
 off all projections, and so steep has it washed 
 the approach to the flats, that there are only one 
 or two places where a passable bush road can be 
 formed through them. 
 
THE LAKES. 201 
 
 Before leaving the subject of these lakes, it 
 would be well to mention that they would have 
 been dried up long ago, were it not for the ex- 
 istence of some fresh water, more particularly 
 described by and by. At present, they only run 
 in particular seasons of the year, and therefore are 
 not able to counteract the immense evaporation 
 which goes on, so that, eventually, the lakes may 
 become perfectly dry, and give rise to black loamy 
 flats with shells interspersed, such as are now met 
 with farther inland. 
 
 Next in succession, proceeding southwards along 
 the coast, we meet with Lake George. This is an 
 irregularly-formed fresh-water lake, farther inland 
 than these lakes usually are, and bounded, as usual, 
 on its eastern side, by the continuation of the 
 Stone Hut Range. 
 
 It has two or three fresh-water creeks leading 
 into it, but none leading out. This is a peculiarity 
 with more of these pieces of water; they all receive 
 tributaries of some kind, but have no outlet be- 
 tween them and the sea, and this may be accounted 
 for by the fact, that nearly if not all of the tribu- 
 taries are dry during the summer and perhaps the 
 greater portion of the year, and the amount of 
 water gained by them is more than lost by eva- 
 poration. In fact, all the lakes bear some remote 
 analogy to the Dead Sea in Palestine, which appears 
 to have been an arm of the sea formerly, and 
 though there is never any overflow into the Red 
 Sea, it receives the whole waters of the Jordan. If 
 
202 LAKE BONNEY. 
 
 evaporation, in this case, can consume the enormous 
 supply of the Jordan, which is always flowing, 
 the climate of this part of Australia, which is quite 
 as dry and rather hotter than that of Palestine, 
 can easily dispose of the result of a few weeks’ 
 rain. I have not been able to afford time for a 
 personal examination of Lake George, but I am 
 credibly informed that it is like most of the others, 
 and has a deep flat of black mud thickly embedded 
 with shells all round its edge. 
 
 Last of all in the series comes Lake Bonney, 
 which, with the exception of the Coorong, is the 
 most important of all. This, as before stated, is 
 about twenty-five miles long and only about two 
 broad, covering an area of rather more than fifty 
 square miles. Like the others already described, it 
 lies between coast hills which lie at the edge of the 
 sea and a continuation of the Stone Hut Range. 
 But these two almost seem to join at the north 
 and south ends, or, at least, are nearly continuous, 
 by a low line of sand-hills which lies between. 
 The hills, however, on each side are almost exclu- 
 sively sandy, and seem to rise to their greatest 
 height opposite the middle of the lake. Round the 
 water the appearances are very similar to what 
 is observed elsewhere; that is, level flats covered 
 with black mud, limestone, and salt-water shells. 
 
 The water is fresh or brackish, and very shal- 
 low. One or two creeks, as usual, flow into it, 
 but there are few outlets. Evaporation goes on 
 very rapidly, but it may be long before it dries up, 
 
LAKE BONNEY. 203 
 
 for I have been assured that about ten years ago, 
 after an unusually dry season, the greater part 
 of the bed of the lakes was quite dry, so that 
 persons have ridden across parts that are now 
 completely under water. To such an extent as 
 twenty-five miles of length, it might be expected 
 that there would be great variations in the nature of 
 the bank, and, accordingly, while some are flat and 
 grassy, others are mere barren sand-hills, which rise 
 rather abruptly from the bank, but there are no 
 precipitous sides, nor, as far as I could learn, any 
 rocks cropping out around its edge. 
 
 There is one peculiarity worthy of attention 
 at the back of the hills which form the eastern 
 or inland boundary of the lake; that is, a 
 long swamp or marsh, which runs parallel with 
 the hills for the whole length of the lake. This 
 is called the German Flat, and is about twenty- 
 five miles long and three broad. MHere and 
 there, places may be found where it is passable, 
 but, in general, it is an immense quagmire, thickly 
 covered over with dense reeds. The most super- 
 ficial observation will convince any one that this 
 has been a reservoir of water at a time when what 
 is now the inland boundary of Lake Bonney was 
 the coast line. Very likely, it was the drainage 
 of the flat which les on the eastern side of it (for 
 there is no elevation of any note for at least ten 
 miles inland), which congregated there when the 
 sea had thrown up the hills, and probably this 
 water occasionally received accessions from the 
 
204 LAKE BONNEY. 
 
 sea in stormy weather, as in the case of the 
 lagoon at Guichen Bay. There are, however, at pre- 
 sent, no marine shells discoverable in it, and this 
 might be expected, because the complete wall which 
 now exists between it and Lake Bonney does not 
 give room for the belief that there was any bay 
 or inlet by which, as in the case of Lakes Eliza 
 and Hawdon, the sea was admitted, until very 
 recently, so that, had there been any shells, they 
 would have had ample time for decomposition long 
 before this, in the peculiar mud of the German Flat. 
 
 It is remarked that every year this flat gets drier, 
 and the land, consequently, more available. This 
 may be due to a greater dryness in the seasons than 
 those which formerly prevailed —a fact to which 
 all the older settlers bear testimony — or it may be 
 due to an upheaval of the land. One thing, how- 
 ever, 1s certain, and that is, that persons who have 
 been witness to the great changes which have taken 
 place in the flat since their first location near it, 
 confidently look forward to a time when the whole 
 will be available for cultivation. The appearance 
 of the flat when seen from Mount Muirhead, a hill 
 about twelve miles distant, is that of a red-brown 
 strip of land which lies like a desert round the hills 
 of Lake Bonney. 
 
 Before leaving the subject of the lakes, two 
 must be mentioned, which lie at the mouth of the > 
 river Murray: these are, Lake Alexandrina and 
 Lake Albert. The former has evidently been a 
 deep bay at the remote time when the Murray 
 
UPHEAVAL. 205 
 
 Mouth was at its northern end. It is a shallow 
 lake, like all of these, and, owing, perhaps, to the im- 
 mense quantities of sediment which are brought 
 down by the river, is becoming gradually more 
 shallow. At the southern end, the Murray Mouth 
 runs through it in a very narrow tortuous channel, 
 which is constantly altering in depth, owing to the 
 sand thrown up by the sea, which beats outside. 
 Lake Albert is a piece of water adjoining Lake 
 Alexandrina, and, like it, appears to have been a bay 
 of the sea. It would appear as if both these lakes 
 owed their origin to a cause like that which formed 
 the Coorong. The upheaval has raised from the 
 sea certain eminences which existed underneath the 
 water as banks or shoal, and these being higher 
 than the bottom between them and the shore, locked 
 in the water as soon as they were above its level. 
 Doubtless the hollow of the lake was caused by the 
 river, and the sediment brought down by it may 
 have caused the bank which, now being upheaved, 
 forms its southern boundary. As usual in these 
 cases, the banks of both lakes abound with existing 
 species of marine shells, showing that all the opera- 
 tions which have taken place have done so within 
 a recent geological period. 
 
 Upheaval of the Australian Coast.—It now re- 
 mains to speak of that which has been so often 
 alluded to in the foregoing chapter as a certain fact, 
 namely, that of upheaval. After having shown 
 that the whole coast round, to a distance of several 
 miles inland, is covered with recent shells, and 
 
06 UPHEAVAL OF THE COAST. 
 
 further, having shown that the drainage of the 
 country is apparently altering, that the lakes known 
 to have been formerly filled with salt water are now 
 filing up with fresh, or becoming dry, it does not 
 require any very great extent of argument to prove 
 the upheaval of the land. But there are other 
 facts. Let us pay attention to the coast-line first. 
 
 The mere outline of the coast seems to show 
 what has taken place. The very fact of so many 
 salt-water lakes near the shore which are not found 
 inland, the majority of them being filled with salt 
 or brackish water, and having their greatest lengths 
 parallel with the coast, is just the state of things we 
 can suppose as having arisen from a coast which 
 the sea has left; and when we take into considera- 
 tion that all the banks of these lakes are covered 
 with marine shells, so recently derived from the 
 sea as to preserve their colours in many cases, any 
 doubt as to their recent recovery from the sea must 
 be entirely removed. 
 
 But we have now more proof than even this. 
 Reefs of rocks are constantly appearing in places 
 where there were none previously. At Rivoli Bay 
 the soundings have altered to such an extent as to 
 make a new survey requisite. It was known that 
 outside this bay there was a reef of rocks running 
 parallel with the shore, but with sufficiently deep 
 water upon it for small ships to pass over. It is 
 now stated that scarcely any vessel can pass over 
 it, and that some of the rocks have actually ap- 
 peared above water. 
 
RIVOLI BAY. 207 
 
 Not very long ago, a schooner, named the Norah 
 Creina, was lost upon that part of the coast, and the 
 master of the vessel stated that the rock upon which 
 he struck was not marked in any chart, and though 
 he had been a very long time upon that coast, he 
 had never seen any signs of a reef there before 
 over which a small vessel could not pass in safety. 
 
 Again, at Cape Jaffa, to the north of Guichen 
 Bay, there is a dangerous reef, which was marked 
 by the French surveyors more than fifty years ago 
 as extending seven miles from the shore. Some 
 four years ago, a fresh survey was made by the 
 South Australian harbour-master, and the reef was 
 found to exist twelve miles from the shore, and a 
 beacon was erected thereon at that distance. I 
 am now assured, by those well accustomed to this 
 part of the coast, that the reef extends two miles 
 beyond the last distance, and I have seen broken 
 water at least a mile beyond the beacon. 
 
 Nor is it alone to this part of the coast that up- 
 heaval has been remarked. It would appear that 
 a vast movement is taking place in the whole of the 
 south part of Australia. In Melbourne, the obser- 
 vations of surveyors and engineers have all tended 
 to confirm this remarkable fact; in Western Aus- 
 tralia, the same thing is observed; at King George’s 
 Sound, the same. As, however, these observations 
 are numerous, I must confine myself alone to the 
 colony to which they refer. 
 
 In 1855, a railway was in course of construction 
 between Port Adelaide and the eity of Adelaide, 
 
208 UPHEAVAL OF THE COAST. 
 
 between which two places there is a gently-rising 
 plain, about eight miles across. Mr. Babbage, the 
 chief-engineer, who made the surveys for the line, 
 published a paper to show that there was an actual 
 difference of level of some inches between his first 
 and his second survey of the respective heights of 
 Adelaide and the port. As the difference was so 
 small, of course this result cannot be given as 
 certain, because, in eight miles of levelling, errors 
 might easily creep up to that amount. 
 
 Under the city of Adelaide there is a thin deposit 
 of shells, containing many recent species, and I have 
 found on hills (many hundred feet above the sea- 
 level beyond Adelaide) a thin deposit of limestone 
 containing shells of recent species. All the hills 
 around are covered for some distance, at least above 
 their base, with limestone; and on Tapley’s Hill, 
 about ten miles to the south-east of Adelaide, there 
 is a cutting in the road, about 1,000 feet above the 
 sea-level, which shows a stratum of limestone, 
 about a foot thick, lying unconformably on highly- 
 inclined slates. Though I have met with no fossils 
 in this, | have no doubt that it is of the same period 
 as the limestone on the coast, and shows that the 
 hills have been raised from the sea within a very 
 recent period. 
 
 The rivers in this part of South Australia all 
 show very clearly the same fact of upheaval. It 
 has already been stated, that there are not many of 
 these geographical blessings in South Australia, 
 and those that are called so are more deserving of 
 
UPHEAVAL OF THE COAST. 209 
 
 the names of creeks than rivers, with the exception 
 ofthe Murray. This latter contains most undoubted 
 proofs of the upheaval of the land. When Sturt 
 first sailed down it in 1829, he remarked that the 
 banks must have formerly overflowed to a much 
 greater extent than they did in his time, because on 
 each side of the actual channel there was a flat of 
 marshy land, or else of good soil, bounded on alter- 
 nate sides by bluff headlands, all of which appeared 
 to have been shaped out by the river, though it 
 did not seem to come near them at the time Sturt 
 passed. These appearances certainly showed that 
 the channel had been narrowed, but not that there 
 was at any time a greater flow of water in the river. 
 Most of the other Australian rivers which have 
 sufficient water in them to wear much into the soil 
 show the same feature. The Glenelg, which runs 
 a little to the east of the South Australian boundary, 
 has sometimes very large flats on each side of the 
 stream, which has generally pretty steep banks, 
 and from the end of these flats hills rise in some 
 places to about 150 feet above them. It is evident 
 that the water once shaped out not only the flats, 
 but divided the hills which bound them. It is true 
 that the river rises in winter some feet above the 
 flats, or at least it has done so in very wet seasons, 
 but it never comes to the foot of the hills, much 
 less could it have given them their present shape. 
 Not only here, but also at the Murray river, there 
 is ample evidence that the cliffs on opposite sides 
 of the river were united, and, what is more remark- 
 P 
 
210 EVIDENCE FROM RIVERS. 
 
 able, they are sometimes composed of pretty hard 
 limestone, showing very clearly that the river, if it 
 cut through them, must have had a long time for 
 its operations. 
 
 Again, on the river Wannon, a tributary of the 
 Glenelg, there are beautiful alluvial flats on each 
 side of the stream, and some parts are studded 
 with round hills, which prove, by horizontal in- 
 dentations round them, that a stream of water 
 gave them their present form. From all these 
 circumstances, it was very natural to conclude 
 that this country had been subject to greater 
 inundations than it is at present, and this was, in. 
 general, the way in which the above appearances 
 were accounted for, but the real cause has been 
 upheaval. It can easily be seen, that when the 
 inclination of a river channel is but slight, the 
 waters will cover a larger area, but with a less 
 depth ; but, as the fall becomes greater and the 
 current more rapid, it will have more effect upon 
 the ground, will rapidly scoop out a deep bed for 
 itself, and narrow its channel, which will of course 
 be deeper in proportion to its narrowness. 
 
 That something like this does take place may 
 be seen from a river in its early stage of develope- 
 ment, not very far from the coast. At the foot of 
 Mount Graham, about forty-five miles from Gui- 
 chen Bay, there is a large morass of very deep 
 black mud. This trends away along the east side 
 of a range of hills, in a north-westerly direction, 
 until it becomes, in a mile or so, a perfect channel, 
 
FROM THE REEDY CREEK. 211 
 
 about half a mile wide, containing little or no 
 water, but very bogey, and covered with reeds. It 
 continues on in the same width for many miles, 
 until it becomes a stream, which empties itself into 
 the Salt Creek and thence into the Coorong. In 
 winter, a small amount of water drains off in the 
 centre of the morass after the first five or six miles, 
 and the stream becomes more copious as it pro- 
 ceeds farther, but the general character of the 
 creek is a great morass, many miles in length, and 
 varying in width from half a mile to 200 yards, and 
 running for its whole length at the foot of the 
 range. ‘There can be no doubt that as the land be- 
 comes more upheaved, and the river has a greater 
 declivity down the coast, the drainage will be 
 better, so that not only will water flow more 
 rapidly, but there will be a larger quantity to run 
 through it. This will not be long scooping out a 
 deep bed in the soft mud which at present lines 
 the bottom, and then there will be presented the 
 same appearance which is assumed now by most of 
 the Australian rivers. 
 
 The range, at the foot of which the Creek now 
 lies, will be separated from the stream by a low 
 reedy flat, sloping down to the precipitous banks 
 which will bound the water. The same flat will 
 be present on the other side, each of them probably 
 indented with marks of various water-levels, and 
 then it will seem as if the country were subject to 
 extraordinary inundations, swelling the river to 
 half a mile in width, when, in reality, the appear- 
 
 Po 2 
 
212 THE REEDY CREEK. 
 
 ances are due to there being at one time scarcely 
 any flow of water at all. 
 
 When we bear in mind the state of such embryo 
 rivers as the Reedy Creek, we come to understand 
 easily how it is that the banks of some streams are 
 composed of high cliffs of soft earthy clay, which, 
 as they sometimes fall in from floods or other 
 causes, disclose the bones of land animals and fresh- 
 water shells. Such remains as these must have 
 become embedded when the stream was in its first 
 stage of formation, when the still water sank 
 deeply into the underlying rock, and decomposed 
 it, mingling its own decomposed vegetable soil 
 with the rocky clay, and giving rise to a morass, 
 in which animals became buried. 
 
 This actually takes place in the Reedy Creek at 
 present, for it is not at all uncommon for cattle 
 and horses to become ‘ bogged,’ and to die in the 
 mud, either in an attempt to reach water in the 
 summer weather, or from feeding on treacherous 
 ground. I do not know whether there is any other . 
 place where a river can be seen in the very first 
 stage of its formation, and the cursory examina- 
 tion that I have been able to afford convinces 
 me that a great many anomalies in the post-ter- 
 tiary period might be cleared up by an attentive 
 examination of what takes place during a rape 
 upheaval of the land. 
 
 The mention of rapid upheaval reminds me of a 
 question that might be asked, namely, whether 
 there is simply evidence that upheaval has taken 
 
EARTHQUAKES. 213 
 
 place within a very recent period, or whether it is 
 thought that the process is still going on. 
 
 The facts I have mentioned with reference to the 
 appearance of reefs, the alteration of the sound- 
 ings, the drying up of the lakes, would seem to 
 bear out the view that the process 7s still going on. 
 Add to this, the shocks of earthquakes have not 
 been at all uncommon in various parts of the south 
 coast of Australia, and these phenomena are gene- 
 rally supposed to be more or less connected with 
 actual upheaval. 
 
 _ A severe shock of an earthquake was felt in 
 Melbourne in 1855; another severe shock was felt 
 in Adelaide in June 1856.* Slight shocks have 
 been felt from time to time in various localities to 
 the north of Adelaide; and there are many re- 
 cords of earthquakes having been felt in different 
 parts of the three colonies within the last twenty- 
 two years; so that it would appear that the present 
 is not a tranquil period in the subterranean forces, 
 but that they are still in activity, and upheaval is 
 still going on. It is not to be doubted, however, 
 that there have been many periods of rest since the 
 upheaval first commenced; indeed, there is actual 
 evidence of many such periods, some of which 
 must be noticed as bearing directly upon the coun- 
 try already described. 
 
 At the head of Spencer’s Gulf, to the north-west 
 of Adelaide, where there are evident signs of up- 
 
 * A smart shock of an earthquake was felt on the Stone Hut 
 Range in December 1861. 
 
214 SPENCER’S GULF. 
 
 heaval, such as the reduction of the gulf to a very 
 narrow channel of about two miles and more from 
 the high cliffs which bound it, there are also un- 
 equivocal signs of long periods of rest. These are 
 shown in three deep indentations which form 
 parallel lines in the cliffs which bound the gulf, and 
 run along it as far as the eye can reach. These 
 may be presumed to have been caused by the water, 
 which ate deeply into the cliffs during a long period 
 of tranquillity. 
 
 The evidence of the same tranquil periods occurs 
 in the district to which this book refers, but they 
 are neither so obvious, at first sight, nor quite so 
 certain. 
 
 It will be remembered, that in other chapters 
 this district was described as an immense plain, 
 divided every ten miles or so by ridges which ran 
 in a way which seem to follow the coast line with 
 only occasional deviations. The principal of these 
 are six in number, between the coast line and the 
 colony of Victoria, where they cease. I mentioned 
 that the greater part of them are mere ridges of 
 sand, with limestone rock appearing occasionally 
 between; but what is rather remarkable, they un- 
 dulate and divide into hillocks somewhat on their 
 western or seaward side, while on their eastern 
 they rise rather abruptly from the plain. Where- 
 ever limestone is seen on them, or the west side, it 
 has all the marks of coast action, such, for instance, 
 as borings of Lithodomi, circular pits lined with 
 lamellar limestone and other similar signs, besides 
 
THE LIMESTONE RIDGES. 215 
 
 having the limestone much worn and eaten away 
 into caves, contrary, occasionally, to the dip of the 
 strata. There can be little doubt that the western 
 side of each of these ranges has successively been 
 a beach, and possibly they may owe their origin 
 entirely to periods of rest in the upheaval. 
 
 Thus there would have been six periods of rest 
 in the upheaval, during which time the sea had 
 time to heap up sand and limestone into dunes, 
 hillocks, and beds, in the way it is at present seen. 
 It must be owned that this is far from being a cer- 
 tain explanation of the origin of these ranges: they 
 may have been ridges underneath the sea just like 
 the Coorong, which is half upraised at present; but 
 the circumstance which makes them very probably 
 the result of coast action, when upheaval was not 
 going on, is, that they seem to follow the coast 
 line, and nowhere rise to a height to which the 
 surf could not have gradually raised them. It is 
 admitted, however, that these reasons are not com- 
 pletely satisfactory, more especially as the width 
 of the ridges and the valley occurring in them 
 would point to upheaval as still going on while 
 they were forming. The circumstance is men- 
 tioned, however, just as an observation which has 
 occurred to the writer, which future geologists 
 may confirm or dispute. 
 
 It would appear, from some observations that 
 have been made, that during periods of rest the sea 
 encroaches on the land and scoops out the shore in 
 such a manner that they form terraces when up- 
 
216 BEACH TERRACES. 
 
 heaved. Nothing of this kind is observed in the 
 ridges, but on lower and more level parts of the 
 coast these terraces are common. Thus,to the south 
 of Rivoli Bay, as far as Cape Northumberland, 
 the coast is very low and flat, only occasionally 
 dotted with rocks, which seldom rise to more than 
 twenty feet above the sea. There is little or no 
 beach, and the waves seem to wash the foot of a 
 terrace raised about fourteen feet. Sometimes the 
 foot of this terrace is a deep bed of black flints en- 
 crusted on the outside, in every respect similar to 
 the chalk flints of England. This is the prevailing 
 character of the beach, but here and there the 
 shingles are absent, and a deep bed of loose yellow 
 sand takes its place. 
 
 Now, above the beach line, about, as before ob- 
 served, fourteen feet high, there is a terrace a 
 quarter of a mile or more wide, and as level as a 
 bowling-green ; it runs a good way parallel with the 
 coast, but is interrupted on the south by swamps, 
 and on the north by Lake Bonney. This latter, 
 as remarked above, has high sand-hills between 
 it and the sea, but there can be little doubt that it 
 forms part of the terrace now described, as both 
 must have been covered by the ocean about. the 
 same time. ‘The terrace seems to have a sloping 
 inclination towards the inland boundary, which is 
 rather an abrupt wall of limestone, about ten feet 
 high, also running parallel with the coast. 
 
 The summit of this is another terrace, but it is 
 not so level as the last, and, being rather thickly 
 
BEACH TERRACES. 217 
 
 timbered, its dimensions are not so readily ascer- 
 tained. It is bounded, however, at about four miles 
 from the sea, by a limestone ridge, which is con- 
 tinuous with the Stone Hut Range, and resembles 
 it in all respects. These terraces are either the 
 result of rests during the periods of elevation, or 
 they may have been sudden upheaval by shocks of 
 earthquakes at a time when Mounts Gambier and 
 Shanck were in eruption. 
 
 Though this is not the nearest coast line to them, 
 they are only about twenty-five miles distant. It 
 must be mentioned, that the surface of these ter- 
 races is generally stony, not, however, in broken, 
 detached masses, but the limestone lies in flat 
 slabs, much water-worn on the surface, just as if 
 the sea had consolidated the limestone paste and 
 worn it smooth. There areno shells on the surface 
 —at least, 1 could discover none— which is the more 
 singular, as in the sand-hills on the coast, at a much 
 higher elevation, shells of existing species abound. 
 
 Notwithstanding, at the foot of each cliff there is 
 the usual deposit of chalk flints much rounded by 
 attrition, not continuous, but scattered here and 
 there in sufficient quantity to make their identity 
 with those on the coast a matter of certainty. 
 
 It will be worth while to enquire for a moment 
 whence these flints have been derived. There are 
 none in the rocks now on the coast, and none, ap- 
 parently, in those which lie beneath the sea; for the 
 structure of all those which I could examine was 
 quite similar to those described in the last chapter, 
 
218 FLINTS. 
 
 the Upper Crag, best seen in Guichen Bay. This, 
 we have seen, is composed of small particles of shells 
 and sand, either brought down by an ocean current 
 or deposited on a sandbank. ‘There are immense 
 quantities of flints in the lower crag about Gambier, 
 and those on the coast are in all respects similar. 
 One would imagine, therefore, that the crag only 
 extends a small way from the shore, and the coral- 
 line beds crop out in its place, from whence these 
 flints are washed out and thrown upon the beach. 
 It was much to be regretted that no levels were 
 ever taken from the coast to a certain distance 
 inland. Not being possessed of any appliances of 
 the kind, it was impossible to tell the height of the 
 terraces on the ranges, except by guess-work. It is 
 therefore only a surmise, that the terraces slope up 
 to each other. There was also another surmise, 
 which I only give as a guess, but which seemed to 
 be borne out by one or two circumstances, and that 
 was, that the flats between the ridges sloped inland 
 in an upward direction, and that the flat on the 
 east side was slightly higher than the flat on the 
 west or seaward side. If this were the case, there 
 would be one more argument in favour of the po- 
 sition, that the ridges have been thrown up during 
 periods of comparative rest, during the general up- 
 heaval of the land, but it must only be considered 
 as a surmise until a regular series of levels is taken. 
 In concluding this chapter, the sand dunes of the 
 coast must be mentioned as bearing ona great deal 
 that has been said in the preceding chapter. It has 
 
SAND DUNES. 219 
 
 been already frequently stated, that the whole coast 
 from the river Murray to Cape Otway is low and 
 sandy ; indeed, this is the prevailing appearance on 
 all the Australian coast. The sand is of three 
 kinds: either in high ridges well grassed, and more 
 or less interspersed with shells; in high detached 
 hills, either bare or covered with salt bush; or in 
 dunes or ridges which are destitute of any vege- 
 tation, and therefore liable to drift by the force of 
 the wind in all directions. 
 
 Perhaps all the sand.now seen on the coast has 
 been originally drifted up, and has only ceased, here 
 and there, by the growth of plants upon it, which 
 has given it firmness and consistency. The dunes, 
 however, are very common, and give a marked 
 character to one portion of the coast, from the 
 mouth of the river Glenelg to Cape Bridgewater ; 
 they form immense masses, in many instances 
 three and four miles from the coast, and rising to 
 an altitude of 300 feet, or even more. Nothing can 
 be more dreary than to stand on one of these emi- 
 nences and gaze below; it is an arid waste of 
 yellow sand, heaped together in ridges or rounded 
 hills, without a patch of vegetation, while afar off 
 the sea rolls on with a heavy surf, making the air 
 resound with its roarings, or terrifying one with 
 the height of its huge crested green waves. On 
 windy days no prospect can be obtained, for then 
 the dunes seem as troubled as the ocean; every gust 
 of wind raises huge clouds of sand, which curl, and 
 break, and drift along, so as to obscure the air. 
 
220 ENCROACHMENTS OF THE SAND. 
 
 Valleys are filled up and hillocks swept away, 
 leaving in a few hours scarcely one feature of the 
 former outline. 
 
 The rate at which the dunes are encroaching on 
 the land is quite surprising. About half way be- 
 tween Cape Bridgewater and the Glenelg there is a 
 high range, six or seven miles from the sea; between 
 this and the dunes a road runs—the coast road 
 between Mount Gambier and Portland. The sand 
 abuts on the road as a high wall, ranging from 200 
 to 800 feet high, and the wind brings it down the 
 slope, and of course encroaches more and more upon 
 the space between the coast and the hills. Every 
 month the course of the road has to be altered, and 
 the old tracks serve as landmarks, from which it 
 can be seen that within a few years the dunes have 
 encroached many yards; nothing stops their course. 
 Bushes are covered in a very short time, large trees 
 are surrounded and buried before their leaves have 
 time to wither, and here and there, what appears a 
 bundle of twigs sprouting out from the sand, is 
 nothing but the top of a high gum-tree which had. 
 been heaped over, and all but this ‘in memoriam’ 
 is covered. The sand, when examined closely, is 
 found to consist of very small fragments of ‘shells, 
 too minute to allow the least chance of identifica- 
 tion, and clear grains of siliclous sand. 
 
 In no place that I was able to examine could I 
 find the smallest indication that the sand became 
 consolidated into a rock, or of any concretions 
 formed by the percolation of rain or surface water. 
 
THE BURYING OF TREES. 221 
 
 The only sign, indeed, that rain had made any im- 
 pression, was at the edges of the slopes, where it cut 
 trifling little courses, and caused the sand, here and 
 there, to slip. These facts are the more important, 
 as they afford additional reasons against the sub- 
 aerial origin of our Upper Crag. If this rock had 
 been formed out of water, its thickness and general 
 character would indicate something very similar to 
 the sand dunes, and then the concretions which are 
 met with must have been caused by the infiltration 
 of rain water. Now, for rain water to have formed 
 concretions more in one place than another, it must 
 have collected on the surface, but this it would not 
 do in sand like these dunes, which absorbs water 
 equally on all parts of its surface. True, if the top 
 was covered with trees it might have collected, but 
 there are no trees on such accumulations of sand. 
 
 Some, however, may think that the burial of trees 
 may be the origin of the concretions in the crag, 
 and offer another reason in favour of its subaerial 
 origin; but to this it may be replied, that in the 
 absence of any instance here of the hardening of 
 these dunes into a rock, such a theory is not con- 
 sistent with observed facts, though such may be the 
 case at Bald Head and Cornwall. 
 
 The strata observed by Mr. Darwin may have 
 been hardened trees, but I could not here find any 
 traces of the same process. 
 
 Again, the quaquaversal dip of these strata, the 
 oblique lamination of the crag, has never been seen 
 by me where a section of the sand dunes was ex- 
 
222 TREES NOT FOSSILISED. 
 
 posed; on the contrary, nothing but a homogeneous 
 mass of sand was perceptible. J am far from 
 denying, however, that if the dunes were hardened 
 into rock, and the trees and branches transformed 
 into calcareous casts, the appearance of a section 
 would, in some respects, bear a strong resemblance 
 to the Upper Crag: but the marine origin of the 
 latter is strongly evidenced (as shown in the pre- 
 ceding chapter), either by its always existing on a 
 coast which has been quite recently upraised from 
 the sea, or by its being in many instances covered 
 with marine shells in limestone, or with trap rock 
 which flowed under the sea, and a subaerial course 
 had nothing to do with its formation. 
 
 It is rather singular, however, that wherever 
 sand dunes are found, a calcareous sandstone for- 
 mation, like the crag, is generally noticed of the 
 coast below it. This is the case on the east coast 
 of England, as also near Lake Superior, in America, 
 where immense sand dunes in the coast are bounded 
 by a hardened calcareous sandstone rock. Again, 
 in South America, Darwin, in mentioning the sand 
 dunes of Bahia Blanca, mentions as near them the 
 great sandstone plateau of the Rio Nigro: the 
 latter, from the great distance of the two localities, 
 is hardly a case in point. 
 
 A moment’s consideration will show why, per- 
 haps, these phenomena are always associated to- 
 gether; not, however, because the rock is derived 
 from the dunes, but because the latter are derived 
 from the rock. Thus, sand dunes are found near 
 
CONCLUSION. 223 
 
 old red sandstone, near secondary, and near recent 
 calcareous sandstones, but in every case it is the 
 weathering and decomposition of the rock whence 
 the sand is derived, and this is the reason why it 
 is found in such large quantities as to drift into 
 hills, valleys, and ranges. , 
 
 To my mind, it would be just as absurd to say 
 that the Old Red Sandstone has been formed by the 
 hardening of the modern dunes, as it is to say the 
 same thing of our Upper Crag. 
 
 In conclusion, some apology must be offered for 
 having dwelt so long on a point of apparently 
 minor importance; but when it is remembered that 
 this formation is found on a great many parts of 
 the Australian coast, nearly, in fact, encircling 
 Australia as a belt, it becomes important to settle 
 the question of its origin. 
 
 Possessing some connection with the coralline 
 strata underneath, and lying on the coast with the 
 most evident marks of upheaval on its surface, it 
 belongs especially to the subject I have attempted 
 to describe. It is the last and uppermost of the 
 stratified series; and, having dwelt on it and on the 
 subject of how these rocks ever came to be dis- 
 played to us from beneath the sea, it remains to 
 consider the volcanic evidences of the district, 
 which will be the subject of the next chapter. 
 
224 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 EXTINCT VOLCANOES. 
 
 PRELIMINARY REMARKS.—ABSENCE OF VOLCANOES FROM AUS- 
 TRALIA.—PROBABILITY OF LESS DISTURBANCE IN SOUTHERN 
 HEMISPHERE.—~MOUNT GAMBIER.—BY WHOM DESCRIBED. — 
 THE LAKES.—THEIR PECULIARITIES.—THE VALLEY LAKE.— 
 THE PUNCH-BOWL.—THE MIDDLE LAKE.—THE BLUE LAKE. 
 —MODE OF THE VARIOUS ERUPTIONS.— VOLCANO ONE OF 
 SUBSIDENCE, NOT UPHEAVAL.—MINERALS FOUND IN THE 
 CRATERS.— PERIOD OF THE ERUPTION.—PROBABILITY OF ITS 
 EXTINCTION. —— RECAPITULATION. 
 
 ITH the last chapter we have concluded the 
 natural history of the sedimentary rocks of 
 the district, and we therefore pass to others of a 
 different origin. It will be necessary again to notice 
 circumstances and phenomena connected with the 
 aqueous formations, such as caves, deposits of 
 bones, &c., but as these are the result of changes 
 not connected with the origin of the rocks, and to 
 which both igneous and aqueous deposits may have 
 been equally subject, the description of them will be 
 more proper at the end of this volume. 
 Let us therefore now turn to the igneous rocks 
 of the district. | | 
 It has sometimes been remarked, that Australia, 
 for its size, is possessed of fewer volcanic remains 
 than any other country of equal extent, while 
 
EXTENT OF SOUTHERN DEPOSITS. 225 
 
 Europe, a continent not very much larger, contains 
 several, which are even now in a state of activity, 
 and is literally studded all over with extinct 
 craters. Australia, as far as it is at present known, 
 contains none of the former and comparatively but 
 few of the latter: probably a reason will be found 
 for this when the geology of this continent is more 
 studied. At present, I feel convinced that it is one 
 of the many evidences we have that disturbance 
 has been much more frequent in the northern than 
 in the southern hemisphere. Look, for instance, at 
 the immense extent of the formations in South 
 America— meaning, of course, the fossiliferous for- 
 mations. There is the great Patagonian tertiary 
 formation, extending (according to Darwin and 
 M. d’Orbigny) from St. Cruz to near the Rio Colo- 
 rado, a distance of 600 miles, and reappearing over 
 a wide area in Entre Rios and Banda Oriental, 
 making a total distance of 1,100 miles; and even 
 this formation undoubtedly extends south of St. 
 Cruz, and, according to M. d’Orbigny, 120 miles 
 north of Santa Fé. In addition to this wide area, 
 there is the Pampean formation, celebrated as the 
 sepulchre of the bones of the mastodon, glypto- 
 don, megatherium, &c., which extends over many 
 degrees of latitude. In our own continent (Aus- 
 tralia) we have formations nearly as large ; — wit- 
 ness the coralline strata described in the previous 
 chapters (the Crags). 
 
 Now, such immense and uninterrupted forma- 
 tions are not known in Europe: on the contrary, 
 
 Q 
 
Dames ee 
 
 226 VARIETY OF EUROPEAN FORMATIONS. 
 
 the amount of different deposits to be found within 
 a small area is surprising; and these are broken 
 by faults, dykes, and inclinations, showing great 
 disturbance, even where the strata are continuous. 
 The best proof that could be given of the greater 
 disturbance in the northern than the southern 
 hemisphere, is that in Europe —nay, perhaps, 
 almost in Great Britain alone — all the deposit of 
 any geological epoch may be studied; but, supposing 
 that geology had just been cultivated in Australia, 
 the whole secondary period, from the New Red 
 Sandstone to the Chalk inclusive, would have been 
 left out of the classification, because such deposits 
 are quite unknown there, and repose and tran- 
 quillity would rather be supposed to be the rule 
 of Nature’s operations, than the ‘immense cata- 
 strophes’ which earlier geologists were led to infer 
 from what they saw in Europe. 
 
 I feel convinced, therefore, that further investi- 
 gations will show that disturbance was uncommon 
 in the southern hemisphere, in comparison with 
 the northern; and this fact, when established, may 
 lead to revelations of subterranean agents, the 
 importance of which we cannot foresee. In the 
 mean time, we must content ourselves with close 
 observation and a record of facts, feeling certain 
 that theory and generalisation will easily be ac- 
 complished when the hard work of detail has been 
 got over. 
 
 With such a view, we have now to record 
 observations on the igneous rocks of this district, 
 
NOTICES OF MOUNT GAMBIER. 227 
 
 commencing in this chapter with the remarkable 
 extinct crater of Mount Gambier; and probably 
 the particulars are interesting to science, not only 
 on account of its being one of the most extensive 
 in South Australia, but because a faithful descrip- 
 tion of it may serve as a guide to other volcanic 
 phenomena on this continent. 
 
 The ground has not been previously quite un- 
 trodden. Captain Sturt, as | am informed, made 
 a series of observations on the place, but did 
 not, as I am aware, proceed any further with re- 
 gard to publishing his remarks. It is supposed, 
 however, that he made some communication to 
 Mr. G. P. R. James, and, accordingly, a rather 
 romantic and incorrect account of Mount Gambier 
 has found its way into one of the works of that 
 novelist. 
 
 In 1851, Mr. Blandowski surveyed and mapped 
 the three lakes, and made some valuable observa- 
 tions on their mineralogical and geological pecu- 
 larities. Part of the latter were embodied in a 
 series of letters to the Adelaide German News- 
 paper, but, owing to the gold discovery, and the 
 confusion subsequent thereon, the maps, &c., were, 
 I believe, unfortunately lost. Nothing further has 
 been done in the exploration of the crater. I have 
 not seen Mr. Blandowski’s papers on this subject, 
 and therefore cannot say how far his views and 
 mine coincide; but, should any of my conclusions 
 bear a stamp of less probability than any he has 
 advanced, I shall be most happy to give way as far 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 MOUNT GAMBIER. 
 
 as possible, as the object of this work is the ad- 
 vancement of science, and not my opinions. Every- 
 one caring for truth will of course always prefer a 
 true theory to giving currency to any deductions of 
 their own. However, I am sure of this, that the 
 facts are strictly stated, as observed; and as I have 
 always given the reasons which have led me to draw 
 any conclusions, readers can judge for themselves 
 whether they are hasty or not. With these pre- 
 fatory remarks, let me proceed at once to my 
 observations. 
 
 The extinct volcano, which is included in the 
 general title of Mount Gambier, is a chain of craters 
 extending nearly, but not quite, east and west; the 
 wall on the west side being by much the most 
 elevated. | 
 
 There are three lakes, and they possess such dis- 
 
 tinct features that they require to be described 
 
 separately: that on the east end, called the Blue 
 Lake, is a large and deep body of water of irregular 
 oval shape, whose longest diameter is nearly east 
 and west. It is surrounded on all sides by banks 
 between 200 and 300 feet high, and these so steep 
 and rugged that descent to the water’s edge is quite 
 impossible, except in one or two places. The sides 
 are thickly wooded with varieties of the Melaleuca 
 (the tea-tree of the colonists), excepting where the 
 rough rocks stand out in perpendicular escarpments, 
 and thus the dark-green brushwood is broken by 
 
 huge and craggy rocks descending precipitously for 
 
 forty or fifty feet. These crags sometimes hang over 
 
‘STLVHO HUVI ANIa ‘“AHIaNVO LNOOW 
 
 c(i 
 
 i 
 
<— 
 
 os 
 
 os 
 
 iy eae 
 
THE BLUE LAKE. 229 
 
 the water, whose already dark-blue tint is rendered 
 still more gloomy by the reflection of their black 
 and stony fronts. The whole appearance of the lake 
 is wild and sombre in the extreme. The deep-blue, 
 or rather inky appearance of the waters, the black- 
 ened precipices which bear so plainly the tokens of 
 fiery ravages, the thick and tangled nature of the 
 brushwood, give the place an air of savage lone- 
 liness; and then the place is so quiet, so still, that, 
 but for the cawing of the rooks overhead, or the 
 splashing of a solitary water-fowl, one might almost 
 imagine Nature to be at rest, tired with sending 
 forth those volcanic fires which poured forth ages 
 ago, 
 
 Looking at the walls from any side, four distinct 
 kinds of roek are visible. There is, first, the larger 
 ash, decomposed into soft black surface soil, covered 
 with grass and trees, and varying in thickness from 
 forty to seventy feet. It extends, in some places, to 
 the water’s edge uninterruptedly; underneath this 
 there is a precipitous escarpment of black lava, 
 generally forty feet thick, but at the western end 
 of the lake much thicker and more precipitous; this 
 extends nearly all round the lake, and is very seldom 
 inclined or broken, or in any other way than a 
 precipice, rough and jagged, and having no dip 
 towards the water. Under this there is, in places, a 
 layer of greyish-brown ash, about two feet thick and 
 very finely laminated: this is only occasionally seen. 
 Beneath this there are about twenty feet of coralline 
 rock, full of fossils, and belonging to the Mount 
 
230 THE MIDDLE LAKE. 
 
 Gambier Lower Crag formation, with the strata quite 
 
 horizontal, and bearing some marks of having been 
 exposed to a high temperature, but rarely crys- 
 tallised. This latter bed of rock forms a well-defined 
 white line, nearly continuous round the lake, at a 
 uniform height of, perhaps, rather more than twenty 
 feet. The lava is not vesicular, or rarely so, and 
 seems to have flowed from some of the lakes to the 
 westward, about which more will be said presently. 
 
 The next lake is merely a good-sized pond, of 
 moderate depth. The level of the water seems 
 about the same as the last lake, and the banks as 
 high, if not higher. They are not precipitous, but 
 slope all round to the water at an equal inclination, 
 with little or no outcropping of rock. They are 
 well grassed and studded with shea-oak ( Casuarina 
 aequejolia) and honeysuckle (Banksia integrifolia) ; 
 the water at the bottom has only made its appear- 
 ance, as I am told, within the last few years. It 
 
 must not be forgotten, in reading the description of: 
 
 these lakes, that they are joined together, so that the 
 west walls of the Blue Lake make the eastern ones 
 of the Middle Lake, as it is called. There is a break, 
 or rather a deep indentation, in the height of the 
 walls between the Blue and Centre Lakes, so that a 
 person standing on the centre of the partition 
 between them sees the walls on his right and left 
 slope upwards from him: this is seen in the fore- 
 ground of the engraving as a kind of pass leading 
 from one lake to the other. The same thing occurs 
 between the Centre Lake and mostwesterly or Valley 
 
 7 ee 
 
MIDDLE AND VALLEY LAKE CRATERS. 
 
 MOUNT GAMBIER. 
 
THE VALLEY LAKE. 231 
 
 Lake; the walls, then, of the Centre Lake are highest 
 on the north and south, while on the east and west 
 line, where they join the two others, they form deep 
 depressions or passes between, though still at a 
 considerable height above the crater. The height 
 of the lowest part above the water is probably, 
 from a rough calculation, about 170 feet, and the 
 highest perhaps double that. 
 
 The third lake differs much from the other two, 
 and is possessed of so many and such varied features, 
 that it becomes difficult, in the details of these, to 
 give a good general idea of its appearance; it is 
 larger than the Blue Lake crater, and of almost cir- 
 cular form, but the bottom is only partially covered 
 with water, very deep at the east end, but shal- 
 low on the west. Those parts which are left dry 
 are always connected with the sides (which are 
 lower there), though in one instance by a mere strip 
 of land, and the ground is very undulatory, rising, 
 at times, into hillocks, which are some little height 
 above the water. The water is at each end, and 
 the ground in the middle, but by far the largest 
 lake is on the eastern side. In the dry part, there 
 are three ponds, which, being circular, appear at a 
 distance like wells sunk side by side. The view 
 from above them would incline one to call the 
 Valley Lake crater a basin with strips of land, 
 which are covered with little ponds, and have a 
 very uneven surface. 
 
 The crater walls surrounding this lake are very 
 remarkable. At the eastern end they are lowest, 
 
232 THE CRATER WALLS. 
 
 rising gradually till about a third of the way 
 round on the northern side, and then, rising sud- 
 denly into a peak and descending again for a short 
 distance, again mount, by a very abrupt elevation, 
 to nearly double the previous height, from which 
 point there is a gentle slope upwards to the highest 
 part of the mount, where atrigonometrical station 
 is erected. From this there is a still more abrupt 
 descent to the usual height of the sides, which is 
 continued round to the starting-point at the east 
 side. That part of the wall which is so consider- 
 ably higher than the rest is what is properly 
 termed Mount Gambier. (This is the peak seen in 
 the engraving.) It is the higher wall of the crater, 
 and gives a better key to the -kind of eruption 
 that has taken place than. any other part of the 
 mount. 
 
 Standing on the highest point, one perceives a 
 basin on the south side which is called the Punch- 
 bowl. It seems like a hollow scooped out by an 
 eruption in the side, and at a distance appears 
 precisely similar to the Cumbrecito in the side of 
 the Caldera, in Palma (Cape Verd Islands). On 
 nearing it, it is found to be very deep, so that its 
 real form is like a funnel, with one side (that 
 which is inside the lake walls) much lower than 
 the other. Here a sort of pitch-stone porphyry 
 is very common, especially on the lower or inner 
 side. 
 
 At first sight, this appeared to be a crater on a 
 small scale, and such no doubt it is, but there is 
 
THE PUNCH-BOWL. 233 
 
 ca 
 
 no sign of any tufa around, as if having fallen 
 from a centre, and the soil is so deep on the inside 
 and so covered with long grass and fern, that 
 assertions as to its origin are founded alone on 
 its shape. ‘The occurrence of such little craters, 
 either at the side or in the walls of craters, gives 
 rise to many speculations. It does seem strange, 
 that while a central large crater is carrying off 
 the subterranean fires, any other vent should be 
 formed so close by. . Possibly it may be one of the 
 many cracks formed at the same time that the 
 crater in the centre was opened, and the steam and 
 gases issuing therefrom would prevent any deposi- 
 tion of ashes upon it while they were deposited all 
 around. 
 
 Or it may have been a small crater established 
 subsequently. These are very common, even when 
 there is a large central point of ejection. Thus, 
 Mount Etna is surrounded with small cones; 
 Vesuvius, Ischia, and Hecla are also innumerable 
 instances of the kind. It must be said, however, 
 that, had it been a subsequent eruption, more 
 disturbance in the original walls would be seen. 
 It may be remarked, in passing, that earthquakes 
 alone have been known to produce such funnel- 
 shaped hollows. The small circular ponds in the 
 Plain of Rosarno, caused by the Calabrian earth- 
 quake of 1783, are cases in point. 
 
 A little past this Punch-bowl, as it is called, 
 nearing the eastern side, the walls, instead of 
 sloping down to the lake as heretofore, become 
 
234 THE CRATER WALLS. | 
 
 precipitous, and the volcanic ashes, disappearing 
 from the sides, appear only on the top. The 
 precipitous portions of this end (forming at least 
 half the wall) are formed of the fossiliferous coral- 
 line strata peculiar to this district. The stratifi- 
 cation is nearly horizontal, with a decided though 
 slight dip inwards towards the lake; which dip, 
 being quaquaversal, or inclining all round to a 
 common centre, shows the rock to have subsided 
 into a hollow previous to the eruption, of which 
 hollow, as will be afterwards seen, the present 
 crater forms only a part. The water appeared 
 to me to be deepest here. ‘The strata are not in 
 the least altered by fire, as far as one could judge 
 from a short distance, the only change being a 
 weather-worn appearance, which is observable in 
 caves elsewhere. 
 
 There is no channel or dyke in any one of the 
 three lakes such as would have been made by 
 a flow of lava; indeed, there is very little appear- 
 ance of lava in the whole group, with the ex- 
 ception of the stratum, which here, as at the 
 Blue Lake, lies between the ash and the coralline 
 strata. But it is only a moderate seam at the end 
 of the Valley Lake just described. The lava where 
 it is found varies in its character, but may be 
 described as dolerite, sometimes very porous and 
 scoriform, in which case it is of a bright brick-red 
 colour; generally, however, it is a blackish brown, 
 occasionally enclosing crystals of glassy felspar and 
 augite. Fragments of scoriz are found on the sides 
 
ree? “se 
 
 THE CRATER WALLS. _ 235 
 
 and bottoms of all the lakes, with pieces of lapilli 
 and porphyry (black base and glassy felspar). On 
 the sides near the higher wall or mount, scoriz 
 occur more frequently, evidently having streamed 
 down in a backward flow, before cooling. The 
 fracture of these pieces is smooth and glassy, ex- 
 actly like pitch or new coal and coke. 
 
 To return now to a more minute description of 
 those portions which throw a light on the past 
 history of the volcano, we come to what is termed 
 properly Mount Gambier, and is, in fact, the highest 
 wall of the Valley Lake crater. This is formed of 
 successive layers of an ash conglomerate, composed 
 of scorie, fragments of obsidian, porous lava, and 
 pieces of the fossiliferous rock, all cemented together 
 into a very hard stone. The wall is a mere ridge on 
 the top, but slopes down on each side to a consider- 
 able thickness. The rock not being decomposed, 
 the layers are well defined. A good section is seen 
 of the highest wall or cone from the inside of the 
 Valley Lake. This is rendered still more conspicuous 
 from the occurrence of a ridge, or sort of buttress, 
 which runs from the water edge to the very highest 
 point of the summit. It is here observed that the 
 layers of ash or strata thin out rapidly, and are 
 inclined at a greater angle in proportion as they 
 near the summit. Thus the dip is constantly 
 variable. This gives a satisfactory answer to the 
 application of Von Buch’s theory in the case of this 
 volcano. Other and more decisive reasons why 
 this cannot be a crater of elevation will be subse- 
 
236 THE HIGHER WALLS. 
 
 quently given. What is somewhat remarkable is, 
 that the strike of these strata inclined at each side 
 of the buttress already alluded to. This ridge, as 
 it may be called, comes out pretty considerably into 
 the lake at its foot, and it is matched on the other 
 side by a similar promontory, making the ground 
 plan of the lake like the figure 8. This fact is of 
 importance, because as these two promontories 
 make nearly a complete circle round the water 
 where the volcano has left most traces, it would 
 seem as if the eruption was confined to that end 
 only, at least latterly in its history. This will 
 appear more reasonable from what will be here- 
 after advanced. The activity of this part of the 
 crater must have concluded with as great violence 
 as the commencement, because at the very highest 
 part of the ash cone there are two or three immense 
 fragments of the fossiliferous rock embedded mo 
 in the conglomerate. 
 
 It has been already observed, in descininte the 
 walls of the Valley Lake crater, that the higher wall 
 or proper mount rises abruptly above the ordinary 
 level of the walls. Before this takes place, there 
 is on the north side an isolated hill or hummock 
 forming part of the wall. Between this and the 
 higher wall the sides are not precipitous, but slope 
 down into a kind of terrace or half-basin, which 
 near the lake becomes a small precipice, covered 
 with red scoriz. At the foot of this small escarp- 
 ment the water is not reached, but there is a gently- 
 undulating ashy slope down to it. This half 
 
THE OLDEST CRATER OBLITERATED. — 237 
 
 basin, with its isolated ash cone, forms somewhat 
 of an inlet from the general form of the lake. Par- 
 ticular attention must be directed to it. Evidently, 
 it has been a crater; probably, oldest and first of all. 
 
 From this crater it would appear the lava has 
 been derived which lies about the limestone in the 
 Valley and Blue Lakes; for from this point the walls 
 on the north side are higher and more undulatory, 
 and, wherever sections can be seen, are formed prin- 
 cipally of thick black lava, flowing away in the 
 direction of the Blue Lake. Considering, however, 
 the moderate thickness of the stream, and its being 
 so slightly vesicular, it must have flowed in a 
 highly liquefied state, spreading out into a sheet, 
 owing to the level character of the ground, and 
 covering spots now occupied by parts of the Blue 
 and Valley Lakes. 
 
 Thus far I have been merely describing those 
 features which are calculated to elucidate the 
 geology of the volcano; I must now consider, 
 from these evidences, what kind of eruption has 
 _ taken place to cause the appearances related. Let 
 us take the Valley Lake first, as best fitted, from its 
 peculiarities, to give us an insight into the whole 
 phenomena. In the first place, we have already 
 seen that the upper part, or west end, contained a 
 recent crater near the ridge, and the relics of an 
 ancient one on the north side. 
 
 The east end of the Valley Lake, it has already 
 been remarked, has precipitous walls of limestone, 
 lava, and ash, with deep water at the foot. The 
 
238 NATURE OF THE ERUPTION. 
 
 bottom of this water is ashes and scorie: I do not 
 think, however, thatthe whole Valley Lake has been a 
 large crater at any time. The eruption of the crater 
 was, in my opinion, entirely confined to the west 
 side, and was neither, comparatively speaking, very 
 violent, nor of long duration. The greatest height 
 of ash is probably not more than 600 feet, and this 
 appears to have been formed almost exclusively 
 from the deep and irregularly-formed lake which 
 lies at the bottom of the higher wall, and this wall, 
 moreover, is nearly the only remains which the 
 eruption has left behind to mark its progress. Of 
 course the two little well-shaped vents for the 
 middle of the lake, already alluded to, contributed 
 their quota; but, as they are both surrounded by a 
 circular wall, some ten or twelve feet high, one 
 must regard their contributions as not on a very 
 extensive scale. The east end, where deep water 
 washes the precipitous banks, may have thrown out 
 some of the ashes that are found on the banks 
 above it; but the origin of this portion of the 
 lake will be considered by and by. 
 
 That the eruption of this crater was not very 
 violent, may be gathered from the following facts. 
 The tufa, &c., are not scattered very far; and do 
 not seem to have been thrown to any considerable 
 height; for the higher wall is so near the point of 
 ejection, and so very narrow, compared with the 
 sides of the Blue Lake. Again, the strata of conglo- 
 merate thin out so rapidly, that they could not have 
 
ITS SMALL EXTENT. 239 
 
 been formed by a volcanic process on a very large 
 scale; besides, to sum up all to a self-evident pro- 
 position, if there was much thrown up there would 
 be more to be seen than there is at present. Many 
 who have seen the mount will be surprised at its 
 size being considered small, but when we remem- 
 ber that the volcano of Jorullo, in Mexico, was ele- 
 vated considerably over 1,000 feet in a single night 
 —when we remember the tremendous height of 
 some volcanic mountains, Mount Loa, for instance, 
 by no means the largest, which is 4,000 feet high— 
 we cannot think it would take very long to form a 
 cone of the moderate pretensions of Mount Gam- 
 bier. Of course, when we speak of small erup- 
 tions and moderate, these remarks must be quali- 
 fied by recollecting that any volcanic action is the 
 result of a vast convulsion of nature, always at- 
 tended with serious effects; and, had there been 
 any life or property in the neighbourhood of Mount 
 Gambier at the time of its eruption, the results 
 would doubtless have been quite extensive enough 
 for the sufferers. But it may be asked, how is it, 
 if the disturbance was confined to one side of the 
 crater, that the ejectamenta do not form a com- 
 plete circle round the point of ejection? The 
 answer to this difficulty, which required some inves- 
 tigation to solve, explains one of the peculiar fea- 
 tures of the volcano, which is, I think, unparalleled 
 in any other volcano in the world, and accounts for 
 the fossiliferous precipice on the eastern end of the 
 
240 : THE VALLEY CRATER. 
 
 basin. The hypothesis, which, after considerable. 
 enquiry, I have been induced to adopt, is this. 
 Previously to tlie second eruption of the ancient 
 crater, but after the first, a large circular mass 
 of limestone fell in, owing to a subsidence under- 
 neath; this subsidence was, of course, connected 
 with igneous agents, and as the same phenomenon 
 has occurred at the Blue Lake, we shall consider 
 it more at length when describing that crater. 
 Such a chasm thus formed would be an ample re- 
 ceptacle for all the ejectamenta which fell eastward. 
 This theory received every support from what is 
 observed elsewhere; indeed, it would never have 
 suggested itself had I not observed the phenomenon 
 in other parts of the district. Thus, at a spot 
 about a mile from the Blue Lake, there is a place 
 called the Cave Station (previously alluded to), at 
 which two immense basins of chasms may be seen, 
 whose precipitous sides and many other evidences 
 easily recognised, show them to result from im- 
 mense masses of rock having fallen in. : 
 The friable nature of the coralline rock renders 
 it much more liable to this kind of accident; and 
 the country, to some distance round, is filled with 
 caves and funnel-shaped holes, avhich nearly all 
 owe their origin to the same cause. That there 
 was a subsidence at the Valley Lake after the up- 
 heaval of the strata is shown by the quaquaversal 
 dip of the beds towards the centres of the basin, 
 and that a chasm was eventually the result of such 
 a subsidence, is recognised from an identity of 
 
THE VALLEY CRATER. 24] 
 
 appearance with the caves, as they are called, just 
 alluded to. 
 
 Probably there was an eruption of ash from the 
 chasm when it was formed, and this explains why 
 there is no line of division or separating wall be- 
 tween the east and west ends of the Valley Lake, 
 for they evidently form separate craters. 
 
 The great disproportion of what I have termed 
 the higher wall to the rest of the ash deposit must 
 of course be attributed to the prevailing direction 
 of the wind, which is always very violent during 
 volcanic disturbance; for the air, heated by the 
 boiling liquid below, rises rapidly, and cool air, 
 rushing in to supply the vacuum so caused, gives 
 rise to a current of air in one direction. This is 
 the reason why, in the volcanic island of St. Paul 
 (88° 44’ $., 77° 37 E.), the west side is 800 feet 
 high, while the east is not much above the water’s 
 edge. But as the wind only accounts for a dispro- 
 portion, and not for the total absence, of one side, 
 the theory of the chasm —which is supposing 
 what the appearance really bears out—is the only 
 satisfactory explanation. 
 
 There is one thing more to be added just now: two 
 promontories were spoken of which jut out from 
 the walls and partially enclose the water. One of 
 these promontories is the ridge already described, 
 which runs to the top of the highest part of the 
 mount; the other is very remarkable. Seen from 
 the east, it appears like a succession of nearly hori- 
 zontal layers of ash, rising into a straight thin wall, 
 
 R 
 
242 THE CENTRAL LAKE. 
 
 nearly forty feet high, but seen from the peak it is 
 found to be composed of strata of tufa dipping in 
 towards the central point of ejection at an angle of 
 nearly 60°. The fact of its having an inclination 
 only one way, and that towards the west or highest 
 part of the crater, is pretty conclusive proof that 
 at the time of its formation there was only one end 
 of the lake from which ejectamenta were coming, 
 and that was the western end. Some subsidence 
 has taken place since the deposition of the ashes 
 found on the north side of the basin, where the 
 amygdaloidal lava is in greatest quantities: the 
 ground sounds very hollow on percussion for some 
 distance, showing the existence of some cave under- 
 neath, the hard nature of the pitch stone just there 
 preventing its falling in. 
 
 We must now turn our attention to the Central 
 Lake. Whatever has been said of the Punch-bowl, 
 on the south-west side of the Valley Lake, applies . 
 equally to this. It is larger, but a mere sloping 
 chasm of half-decomposed ash, with a pond of water 
 at the bottom. It has been stated before, that no 
 rock is visible on its sides. It is well grassed. 
 
 The eruption from this crater has not been very 
 violent; probably, it was subsequent to the most 
 ancient crater in the Valley Lake. There are no 
 data to form an opinion as to what relation, in point 
 of time, it bears to the other craters. A section of 
 some little depth on the top of the sides near either 
 of the other lakes would show, by the stratification 
 of the ash, which was prior to the other; and, un- 
 
THE CENTRAL LAKE. 245 
 
 fortunately, no such section is obtainable at present. 
 There is nothing, however, against the theory that 
 they may have been synchronous. It is rather 
 strange, however, that this crater lies in the straight 
 line between the other lakes, each of which has a 
 seam of basalt underneath the ash, and there are 
 no signs of this seam in the crater under consider- 
 ation, neither does the subjacent limestone show. 
 This may arise from the more moderate depth of 
 this crater. J cannot help thinking, however, that 
 it goes deep enough to show both. The absence of 
 the seams may be explained otherwise. If the 
 seam of basalt had flowed prior to the eruption of 
 this part of the volcano, its subsequent breaking 
 forth might have blown away the seam of trap and 
 covered the fragments with ash; and there are 
 fragments in the sides to bear out this hypothesis. 
 
 Another theory which has suggested itself is 
 this—the crater may have been in activity while 
 the lava was flowing, and so have heaped up suffi- 
 cient ash to have kept the stream away from its 
 mouth. In effect, the ash is higher on the side past 
 which the lavaflowed. These are the only facts worth 
 mentioning in connection with this crater, which 
 seems to have been quite undisturbed, and remains 
 now like a blackened cauldron, a sombre monument, 
 of the ravages of its former igneous tenant. 
 
 The consideration of the Blue Lake has been 
 reserved till the last, as being the most extensive, 
 and as where the eruption both began and ended. 
 Having already described its aspect and appearance, 
 
 R 2 
 
244 THE BLUE LAKE. 
 
 we have only now to do with its geological features. 
 From the regularity in the form of the walls, and 
 from their uniform height all round, one easily 
 concludes, that whatever eruption took place from 
 this crater, it was sustained from a line in the 
 centre, without being subject to any variation. 
 Indeed, the whole seems to have been formed by 
 successive layers of ash regularly distributed all 
 round on the top of the stratum of trap (much 
 thicker here) which lies on the limestone, and 
 through which the volcano has broken a passage. 
 
 Close to the lake the ash is probably 150 feet 
 thick; at a quarter of a mile this is reduced to be- 
 tween forty and fifty feet, and at the distance of 
 a mile this thins out to a mere seam, varying from 
 three to six feet in thickness, and so on till it 
 becomes lost in the upper soil. This is what is per- 
 ceptible about a foot or so from the surface, but, 
 as the dark soil of the country is nothing but the 
 result of decomposed ash, the deposit must have 
 been much thicker than it now appears. Nearly all 
 round the lake there is a regular line of demar- 
 cation, made by the thick seam of basalt which 
 intervenes between the rock and the ash. 
 
 It has been already stated, that a layer of. highly 
 laminated grey ash lies between the basalt and the 
 limestone; it is about two feet thick in some places, 
 and the laminations dip in all directions. This 
 clearly shows that an eruption had taken place 
 before the flowing of the lava, since it is underneath 
 it. This could not have been from the Blue Lake, 
 
THE BLUE LAKE. 245 
 
 because, in that case, the lava would show some 
 signs of having flowed over into the basin. But it 
 does not. On the contrary, it appears in clean 
 escapements, as if broken away round the edge of 
 the lake after cooling. The general dip of the ash 
 laminations points to the Valley Lake, probably 
 the ancient crater, as the point whence they pro- 
 ceeded. Had the crater, at the point whence they 
 proceeded, been nearer, we might expect the ash 
 deposit to be thicker than it is found. 
 
 The limestone underneath was not altered or 
 crystalline wherever examined. ‘This is not sur- 
 prising. If volcanic sand acts as a non-conductor 
 of heat to such an extent that clefts in Mount 
 Etna, filled with snow and ice, when covered with 
 it are not melted by subsequent flows of lava, we 
 can easily understand why the limestone should 
 remain unaltered. A layer of ash, two feet thick, 
 would amply resist the heat of a much thicker flow 
 of lava than that found at Mount Gambier. I may 
 just mention, in passing, Naysmith’s experiment, 
 quoted by Sir Charles Lyell in his ‘ Principles of 
 Geology :'—‘A cauldron of iron one inch thick, lined 
 with sand.and clay five-eighths of an inch thick, was 
 able to contain eight tons of melted iron at a white 
 heat. Twenty minutes after the pouring in of the 
 iron, the hand could be placed on the outside with- 
 out inconvenience.’ 
 
 The limestone is not altered; the edges of the 
 strata exposed to the lake are discoloured, just as 
 if gunpowder had been exploded, here and there, in 
 
246 THE BLUE LAKE. 
 
 spots; the strata are hardened, and detached frag- 
 ments ring on percussion; the edges are also jagged 
 and precipitous, like the lava above them. There 
 are no incrustations of lava; no pumice or scoriz 
 adhering to the sides, wherever I could examine 
 them; and, as far as appearances go, this holds good 
 all round. I must observe, however, that, as some 
 portions of the wall rise straight from the water’s 
 edge, they can only be examined by means of a 
 boat. 
 
 Descending to the margin of the lake, (a proceed- 
 ing which requires some little nerve and prudence 
 to accomplish), the appearance of the water is quite 
 changed. Instead of having that dark and murky 
 hue it seems to possess as seen from above, it as- 
 sumes a beautiful crystal clearness, unequalled by 
 the purest spring that ever flowed from a rock. 
 Rapidly deepening from the side, the water becomes 
 a delicate azure at a short distance from the brink, 
 still, in its faint distinctness, showing the outlines 
 of great boulders of rock on the bottom, whose 
 great proportions are gradually lost in the increas- 
 ing depth. And there the surface is so calm and 
 quiet, only disturbed by the most gentle rippling, 
 which wreaths the pretty water-plants into most 
 graceful forms, and makes them, from time to time, 
 reveal the surface of the snow-white rock upon 
 which they grow. 7 
 
 Sometimes, however, the water deepens almost 
 perpendicularly from the sides. It is somewhat 
 singular, that though the sides are formed either 
 
THE BLUE LAKE. 247 
 
 of the coralline rock in situ, or of large fragments 
 of this limestone lying on the rapidly sloping sides, 
 there are no fragments of the basaltic trap which 
 lies above it. If, as hereafter will be proved, this 
 crater began its career by the falling in of the 
 chasm now visible, it is strange that fragments of 
 trap are not as common on the sides beneath the 
 water-level as fragments of limestone, since both 
 equally formed portions of the superincumbent 
 mass. Perhaps no fragments of either remained 
 on the sides at the time of the formation of the 
 chasm, and those that are now seen have been de- 
 tached subsequently from portions which lay under 
 water. 
 
 The lake is known to be 240 feet deep in the 
 middle, and from soundings it would appear that 
 the bottom is flat and equal, like a floor. This was 
 ascertained from a boat which took the Governor 
 (Sir R. G. M‘Donnell) upon its surface—the only 
 time its waters were traversed by man. I was un- 
 able to find any tufa, scorie, or porous lava, a few 
 fragments of pitchstone being the only volcanic evi- 
 dences which appear.. This may not be the case all 
 round; but, until more facilities are afforded for 
 investigation, my conclusions must rest only upon 
 what Iam able to observe. Here, then, the evidence 
 shows there has been an eruption which has been 
 considerable, both from the size of the lake and the 
 immense quantities of ash thrown to such a dis- 
 tance. That it has been accompanied with violent 
 explosions is seen from the immense masses of basalt 
 
248 ITS ERUPTION. 
 
 which are sometimes buried in the ash, and yet, 
 with all these marks of disturbance, there are no 
 signs of any outpouring of lava, little or no pumice 
 or scoriz, and not even an aperture in the side 
 through which any lava could have flowed, nor any 
 fragmentary slags adhering to the face of the pre- 
 cipitous rock. Such’ appearances, seemingly con- 
 tradictory and inexplicable at first, are conse- 
 quences of the peculiar nature of the eruption 
 which took place. Iam going now to give a his- 
 tory of the igneous activity of the volcano, which 
 will clear up whatever obscurity there appears to 
 rest on the mode of its disturbance, and, as I pro- 
 ceed along, I shall give the complete chain of eyi- 
 dence by which the explanation is supported; but 
 as the theory would appear startling unless some 
 parallel case were cited, let me, by way of preface, 
 give an account of a volcano at present in activity, 
 which Mount Gambier most resembles. 
 
 In the Sandwich Islands there is a volcano called 
 Mount Goa, which, though very much larger than 
 the one under consideration, resembles it in many 
 ways. In the side there is a lateral crater, at pre- 
 sent in activity, called Kilauea, which is 3,970 feet 
 above the level of the sea, or about the same height 
 as Vesuvius. Sir C. Lyell, in his admirable ‘ Manual 
 of Geology,’ describes it thus :—‘ Kilauea is an im- 
 mense chasm, 1,000 feet deep, and in its outer 
 circuit no less than from two to three miles in 
 diameter. Lava is usually seen to boil up from 
 the bottom in a lake, the level of which alters con- 
 
ITS ERUPTION. | 249 
 
 tinually, for the liquid rises or fallsseveral hundred 
 feet, according to the active or quiescent state of 
 the volcano; but, instead of overflowing the rim of 
 the crater, as commonly happens in other vents, 
 the column of melted rock forces a passage into 
 subterranean galleries or rents leading towards 
 the sea.’ 
 
 A Mr. Coan has described an eruption which 
 took place in 1840, when the lava had risen high 
 in the crater and began to escape from it. The 
 direction of the current was first traced from the 
 emission of a bright vivid light from an ancient 
 crater 400 feet deep, about six miles to the east- 
 ward of Kilauea. The next indication was about 
 four miles farther on, where the fiery flood broke 
 out and spread itself over about fifty acres of land, 
 finding its way underground for several miles 
 farther, to reappear at the bottom of another an- 
 cient crater, which it partly filled up. The course 
 of the fluid then became invisible for several miles, 
 _ until it broke out, for the last time, twenty-seven 
 miles from Kilauea, running in the open air for 
 twelve miles, and then escaping into the sea over a 
 cliff fifty feet high in a cataract of liquid fire which 
 lasted for three weeks. The termination was about 
 forty miles from Kilauea. 
 
 Now, there can be very little doubt that some- 
 thing similar to this has happened at Mount Gam- 
 bier, consequent on the eruption, perhaps, of both 
 craters. The mount is scarcely fifteen miles from 
 the sea, and being not much above the level of the 
 
250 THE BLUE LAKE. 
 
 latter, would not give occasion to the lava to come 
 to the surface during its passage. 
 
 Mount Shanck, another extinct volcano, lies in 
 a straight line between the sea and Mount Gambier ; 
 but, as it will form the subject of the next chapter, 
 I will not enter further into its description than to 
 state that there is no mark of any lava stream from 
 Mount Gambier in its vicinity,— nor need we expect 
 it, since the igneous forces which caused both must 
 have had a subterranean connection. 
 
 The theory that the lava flowed underground 
 into the sea, was formed after investigating the 
 features of the lakes, for it seemed quite natural to 
 conclude, that after such an eruption there must 
 have been a flow of lava in some direction; and I 
 thought it likely, provided the sea level had not 
 much altered since the eruption, there should be 
 some signs of volcanic rocks on the sea coast to the 
 south of the craters. This is, in fact, the case. A 
 seam of trap is seen on some of the rocks, as though 
 it had come to the surface and flowed over them. 
 The trap is not vesicular, and may have flowed 
 under, the sea, because this part of the coast has 
 only recently been upheaved. It is not certain, 
 however, that it does come from these craters, 
 though the probability is greatly in favour of that 
 theory. 
 
 We will now consider the peculiar features of the 
 Blue Lake as indicating the kind of eruption that 
 has taken place. From the fact of the seam of 
 lava bearing most positive evidence of having been 
 
THE BLUE LAKE. 251 
 
 fractured all round, to give rise to the present 
 crater, there can be no doubt that the chasm owes 
 its origin to subsidence and the falling in, en masse, 
 of the superincumbent strata. This seems a bold 
 theory, but no other will coincide with the appear- 
 ances the lake presents. Had the chasm been 
 already there when the lava flowed, it must have 
 shown some signs of flowing over the banks, but 
 none such exist. The rock appears to have been 
 split into a jagged precipice by the falling in of a 
 part. From the crater thus formed ashes and scorie 
 were ejected. Its depth by the present soundings, 
 from the top of the lava to the fused mass, must 
 have been nearly 500 feet; of course nearly all the 
 subsided rock would be rapidly fused, except some 
 few fragments thrown into the air by explosions 
 and deposited on the sides. Such fragments, some, 
 perhaps, weighing as much as a ton, are seen em- 
 bedded in the ash. It must not be imagined that 
 there is any novelty in supposing extensive sub- 
 sidence during volcanic eruptions. Indeed, the Val 
 del Bove, on the side of Etna, is supposed to have 
 been caused by a similar agency. Mr. Charles 
 Darwin, in his interesting volume on volcanic 
 islands, has given many instances of subsidence 
 coincident with volcanic disturbance, or imme- 
 diately following them. 
 
 It will be remembered, also, that subsidences are 
 supposed to have operated at the east end of the 
 Valley Lake. It must be admitted that there is a 
 novelty in assuming a crater with such an origin, 
 
252 THE BLUE LAKE. 
 
 but no doubt can be entertained that after the 
 subsidence an ejection of ashes took place. This 
 mode of eruption of a volcano is hardly in accord- 
 ance with received theories as to the manner of 
 their breaking forth, nor should I venture to pro- 
 pose it, were it not strictly in accordance with 
 observed facts. Nothing, however, can more per- 
 fectly contradict the crater elevation theory as 
 applied in this case. So far from there being any 
 marks of elevation, the limestone strata preserve 
 a most perfect horizontality at the water’s edge. 
 Abruptly as the ash dips outwards, the limestone 
 strata most convincingly show that it (the ash) 
 has not been upheaved to its present position. 
 Instead, then, of an elevation theory, we must 
 adopt a subsidence theory in this case. Whether 
 this is applicable in any other instance I am un- 
 aware, but the fact, if new, may be useful in ex- 
 plaining anomalies in other extinct craters. After 
 the subsidence, the eruption must have been sus- 
 tained for some time, for the ash above the lava is 
 upwards of 100 feet thick, and dips away all round 
 from the Blue Lake, showing that as its centre. I 
 do not think that the subsidence was caused by the 
 eruption of lava from the first and most ancient. 
 crater, —the lava would have then been heated 
 enough to make it plastic, —but it appears to have 
 been perfectly cool when broken, and the fractured 
 edges are sharp and jagged. The subsidence more 
 probably took place when a subsequent eruption 
 had caused an underground flow of lava. This of 
 
FORMATION OF THE CHASM. 253 
 
 course would have been larger in quantity, and 
 would have given rise to a larger vacuum. 
 
 The eruption, then, was this :—The boiling lava, 
 from whatever cause arising, may have pressed hea- 
 vily against the overlying strata, so as to crack and 
 fracture it in many places. The pressure which would 
 force a mass of rock half a mile wide, and in thick- 
 ness equal to the depth of the lake, at least 240 feet, 
 must have been enormous, and this, when exercised 
 on the soft friable rock of the sides, or, it may be, 
 on what is mere sand (underneath the coral strata), 
 when, combined with heat, would easily force a 
 passage towards the sea; and once an outlet was 
 obtained, the absence of lava would cause a hollow, 
 and finally a chasm, through which the eruption of 
 ash would have full play. To a failure of support, 
 consequent on a subterranean outpouring of lava, I 
 attribute the chasms of both the Blue and Valley 
 Lakes, with this difference, that while the eruption 
 continued throughout the whole extent of the Blue 
 Lake after the falling in of the rock, in the Valley 
 Lake it was confined to the west end of the chasm, 
 formerly the high wall or peak of Mount Gambier. 
 The eruption, then, of the Blue Lake was simply 
 limited to the ejection of large quantities of ashes 
 and occasional fragments of rock, continued for 
 some time after part of the boiling fluid had made 
 a way under the soft limestone rock, and flowed 
 down to the sea. 
 
 We have seen that there are four extinct craters 
 at Mount Gambier, besides the remnant of a fifth. 
 
254 THE ASHES. 
 
 Some of these may have been in activity together. 
 There were, I think, three periods during which 
 the craters were more active than at other times; 
 though the rests, apparently, were only temporary, 
 and far from leaving the mount in a perfect state 
 of repose. 
 
 The following are the reasons upon which these 
 suppositions are based:—At a short distance from — 
 the lake the ashes are found to lie in three distinct 
 layers, all composed of coarse tufa underneath, and 
 fine ash-dust on the uppermost side. Each layer 
 was doubtless caused by a distinct violent eruption, 
 which, on the commencement, would scatter large 
 fragments about, and, as the energy subsided, a fine 
 ash-dust would gradually cover them over. The | 
 eruption again breaking out, would renew the large 
 fragmentary layer, thus marking its own periods of 
 disturbance by distinct strata. 
 
 That the lulls were only very temporary may be 
 seen from the fact, that the fine dust on the upper 
 side of the lower or of the middle strata had not 
 time to become the least altered before the second 
 and third deposits were superimposed. Generally, 
 above the upper layer there is a mass of rich 
 black loam, covering it at a variable thickness. 
 This is decomposed ash, originally of a fine and, 
 therefore, easily decomposable texture. This latter 
 deposit is easily accounted for, because, after an 
 outbreak, there ensues in all volcanoes a long period 
 of quasi-disturbance, during which time the erup- 
 tion is, as it were, settling down, and the crater 
 cooling. In this interval smoke and fine dust are 
 
AGH OF THE CRATER. 255 
 
 continually emitted, and cover the ground to some 
 extent in those places nearer the crater. 
 
 There remains now only one point to be noticed, 
 and that is as to what geological date we are to 
 assign the period of disturbance. One thing only is 
 certain, that it happened since the Crag period, 
 though at what precise epoch there is no evidence 
 to show. The fossiliferous rocks, so often alluded 
 to, are of the Mount Gambier formation, described 
 in former chapters of this work. The ashes, as 
 before stated, are resting above them, and evidently 
 there has been little or no upheaval since the volcano 
 broke forth. They were formerly, beyond a doubt, 
 part of a coral reef, and immense masses of a com- 
 mon extinct pecten may still be seen in the walls, 
 with lumps of coralline of the species alluded to, 
 
 Pecten. coarctatus, Mount Gambier. 
 
 classified under the name of Cellepora gambierenis. 
 Of the peculiarities of the strata, however, I shall 
 say only one word more at present, so as not to 
 repeat what has already been described in another 
 part of this work. 
 
 Wherever the beds are found caves also appear, 
 many of which (by piles of bones, &c.,) are 
 seen to be certainly not later than the Post-Pleio- 
 cene. ‘The rocks, therefore, were in that period in 
 
256 DATE OF LAST ERUPTION. 
 
 the position they are at present, which they were 
 also in when the volcano broke out; so that if here- 
 after caves should be found with ash, &c., inside, 
 or bearing marks of having been disturbed by the 
 eruption, some better approximation may be made 
 to the geological date: but at present the rocks 
 cease to guide us farther. 
 
 But was the volcano in activity lately? An 
 answer in the negative may safely be given, be- 
 cause, first, the ash is quite decomposed in many 
 places, and the porous lava partly so, which must 
 have taken considerable time to effect; and next, 
 the large crater is filled with water to the depth of 
 240 feet, which water could not even have begun to 
 collect until the rock was perfectly cool, and then 
 must have takeh ages to become the large body of 
 fluid at present resting there. To give an idea 
 how long it takes volcanoes to cool, or for the ash 
 to decompose, [ will mention a few instances. The 
 lava of Jorullo, which poured forth in 1759, was 
 found to retain a very high temperature half a 
 century after. The ashes on the Peak of Teneriffe 
 are nearly undecomposed, and yet it is not known 
 to have received any fresh additions during the 
 last 600 years. Some of the ashes on extinct vol- 
 canoes in Auvergne, which I visited in 1853, are 
 much less decomposed than those of Mount Gam- 
 bier, and yet the former have been deposited more 
 than 1,800 years ago. Now, when it is remembered 
 that the ashes of the latter are not only decom- 
 posed, but that large trees have taken root and 
 grown up in it, we must be of opinion that our 
 
ITS ANTIQUITY. - 257 
 
 volcano has been extinct for some considerable 
 time. And let it be remarked, that the cases | 
 have mentioned are not exceptional, for I could 
 specify many more, which would all bear testimony 
 to the antiquity of the mount. 
 
 When, however, we say that it has not been in 
 activity lately, there is no intention of asserting 
 that it is impossible for it to break out again: 
 tranquil as it may appear, the igneous agent may 
 still be active below. It should not be forgotten 
 that Vesuvius was quite as tranquil about eighteen 
 centuries ago. Indeed, when reading the descrip- 
 tion of the former state of Vesuvius, its great basin, 
 in which trees and grass grew, and an army was 
 once encamped, one is forcibly reminded of the 
 present state of Mount Gambier. 
 
 If Vesuvius has become what it now is, Mount 
 Gambier may yet do so likewise. At any rate, it 
 is not completely at rest, for shocks of earthquakes 
 have been occasionally felt, while the land around is 
 daily upheaved. This latter fact is significant. No 
 active volcano has been found otherwise than in 
 the vicinity of land in the course of upheaval, 
 though the converse of the fact hardly holds good. 
 
 I forgot to mention that there is always found 
 between the ash and limestone, when at any dis- 
 tance from the craters, a thick bed of fine sand, 
 showing that, after the upheaval of the reef from 
 the sea, it became a sandy desert previous to the 
 igneous outburst. Whether this sand supported 
 any vegetation, or whether there was any vegeta- 
 
 S 
 
258 CONCLUSION. 
 
 tion in the surrounding country prior to the break- 
 ing out of the volcano, it is difficult to determine: 
 none has been found between the ash and the lime- 
 stone. I may mention, however, that I have seen 
 fragments of scoriz enclosing pieces of charcoal. 
 
 The minerals found in the craters are few, chiefly 
 confined to olivine, with darker crystals of the 
 same mineral embedded. The aborigines use the 
 dolerite as a weapon, fixing it in pieces of wood, 
 and forming a kind of axe; and, singularly enough, 
 the same mineral serves a similar purpose to the 
 Indians near the Cordilleras of South America. 
 
 I think I have now gone through the principal 
 features of this curious volcano, in which I have 
 often been obliged to sacrifice, for succinctness, 
 many details I could have wished to have mentioned. 
 We are told there is a philosophy in stones, and it 
 certainly is strange what a history of the past a 
 few rocks can give us. There has been a coral 
 reef, a desert, and a burning mountain where 
 beautiful lakes now rest, and each period has 
 erected monuments to its memory. There is a 
 history, too, written in plain characters, for the 
 mind of man, and my occupation has been to 
 decipher it. 
 
 Going back, in imagination, to the time when 
 the coral was alive and covered by the sea, who 
 could have thought it would come to be what it is 
 now? But imagination is not needed. We have 
 only to glance at the remains before us to realise 
 the truth of the tale they tell. These rocks were 
 
CONCLUSION, 259 
 
 once covered by the green waters. There, while 
 the rising tide dashed its sparkling waves through 
 the groves of coral, where the busy polypi were 
 plying their variegated arms in search of matter to 
 add to these structures, a thousand fishes frisked 
 for a while to die and leave their forms imprinted 
 on the stone, while the cunning saurian slept among 
 the arborescent forms, or wilily watched his prey. 
 Then the earth slowly raised them from the waters, 
 and life faded away. Fishes and reptiles are gone, 
 and stones tell how they lived and died. The reef 
 became a sandy desert, without a drop of water 
 or a sign of vegetation to relieve the eye—a vast 
 and dreary solitude. But Nature soon changes the 
 scene. Subterranean thunders are heard; earth- 
 quakes rumble and rock the ground. Then masses 
 of stone fall in and give vent to smoke and steam, 
 which rush from the centre of the earth. By and 
 by, fire begins to appear, and Nature, no longer 
 able to restrain the ravages of heat, sends it forth 
 into a bubbling hissing cauldron of molten stone. 
 Standing upon the brink (if human being could 
 stand alive on such a place), while the air is dark- 
 ened with smoke and ashes, and huge fragments of 
 stone are being hurled into the air to fall into the 
 hissing seething mass below; while the light from 
 the fire and the noise of explosion blinds the 
 lightning or outbids the thunder overhead; while 
 the bellowing and splashing of a lake of fire make 
 a scene at once horrible and magnificent, one could 
 almost imagine oneself on the bank of Tartarus. 
 s 2 
 
260 CONCLUSION. 
 
 But comparison would be vain; not even Vulcan 
 could stand and describe such a scene. He might 
 have thought, 
 
 ‘In Chaos antiquum confundimur. 
 Neque enim tolerare vaporem 
 Uhesw potmit; 1 nec dicere plura.’ Ov, Phaéton. 
 
 But now how changed is the scene! the smoke has 
 cleared away, and the fires are extinct. Nature is 
 at her repose. The melted walls have cooled, and 
 an azure lake covers them. The ashes on the bank 
 are covered with verdure, and reeds grow where 
 fire glowed. The underground thunders are indeed 
 heard no more, but the wind sends a soft moaning 
 through the shrubs, while the gentle splashing of 
 the calm and glassy lake is now the only echo that 
 is heard from shore to shore. 
 
261 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 VOLCANOES ——CONTINUED. 
 
 MOUNT SHANCK. — DISSIMILARITY OF VOLCANOES.— IMPORTANCE 
 OF DESCRIBING THEM.—DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNTRY.— 
 WELL-SHAPED HOLES. — VALLEY. — AUSTRALIAN FLORA. — 
 SMALL LAKE.—VOLCANIC BOMBS.—THE GREAT CONE. —RE- 
 MAINS OF FORMER CRATER.—HOW MORE RECENT CONE WAS 
 FORMED.—ITS APPEARANCE AND SIMILARITY TO VESUVIUS 
 AND ETNA.—INDENTATION IN THE SIDE.—EVIDENCE OF 
 FORMER PEAK.—LAVA STREAM.—CURIOUS MODE IN WHICH 
 IT IS HEAPED.—DERIVED FROM OLDER CRATER.—CAUSE OF 
 HEAPING OF THE SCORIA.——-PARALLEL INSTANCES. — CONNEC- 
 TION OF MOUNTS GAMBIER AND SHANCK.— CONCLUSION. 
 
 FTER having given my readers a lengthy 
 detail of the extinct volcanoes of Mount 
 Gambier, we now turn to the volcanic monument 
 next in importance in this part of South Australia, 
 namely, Mount Shanck. It is scarcely so interest- 
 ing as Mount Gambier, being neither so extensive 
 nor so varied; but it is important, as showing how 
 far the views on the subject of the former crater 
 are realised in this. One would think there was 
 a great sameness in the character of volcanoes, 
 because, having all resulted from the same cause, 
 namely, the outburst of molten fires from the in- 
 terior of the earth, the same appearances might be 
 expected. On the contrary, however, there is the 
 
262 MOUNT SHANCK. 
 
 greatest variety. No two ever resemble each other, 
 except, perhaps, in the conical outline and the basin 
 in the centre, and it is in the description of their 
 various peculiarities that so many facts connected 
 with their history have been brought to light. 
 
 Lest any should think that in the following 
 pages too much space is given to detail, it should 
 be remembered, that even if the facts are new they 
 are important, and may help to settle points in a 
 matter where very little certainty prevails. Apart, 
 however, from confirming a theory, the history of 
 any volcanic phenomena cannot fail to be interest- 
 ing; if it only should give us an idea of the extent 
 to which our continent has been disturbed by fiery 
 agency, before becoming a resort for the European, 
 it would be well worth consideration. But it does 
 more. It isa part of the history of the earth,—one. 
 of the many testimonies which the rocks bear to 
 the wondrous structure of the ground beneath our 
 feet—to the greatness of that Omnipotence which 
 can let fires flow forth so as to melt rocks and rend 
 mountains, and then seal them up so that flowers 
 shall grow peacefully where they rose. 
 
 Another reason may be added for multiplying 
 the records of volcanic action. We are far, even 
 at the present day, from understanding the cause 
 of volcanoes. Theories have been propounded, but 
 uncertainty prevails. From Nova Zembla to New 
 Zealand they are constantly met with, and though 
 at this moment they are burning amid the snows 
 of Iceland, the waters of the Mediterranean, and 
 
MOUNT SHANCK. 263 
 
 the heats of the equator, their origin and the man- 
 ner in which they burn out are equally mysterious. 
 In this state of things, the accumulation of records 
 is of great importance. Every little (in which 
 category these observations are included) may be 
 of use. 
 
 It will be remembered, that in explaining the 
 geological features of Mount Gambier it has been 
 stated:—1. That the lava arising from the erup- 
 tion has, in all probability, flowed underground. 
 2. That the eruptions do not appear to have given 
 rise to any upheaval or elevation in the immediate 
 neighbourhood of the walls; on the contrary, sub- 
 sidence seems to have been very frequent. 38. That 
 to sudden subsidences of small areas are to be attri- 
 buted some of the Mount Gambier craters. It is 
 necessary that these particulars should be borne 
 in mind, because they are elucidated by what is 
 now to be described, and because, as Mount Shanck 
 is between Mount Gambier and the sea, some con- 
 firmation must be looked for of the fact (if fact it 
 be) that the lava flowed underground. 
 
 Mount Shanck, as seen from Mount Gambier, 
 appears like a truncated cone, rising abruptly from 
 an apparently level plain. There are no moun- 
 tains rending to break the suddenness with which 
 it appears on the field of view, and its darkened 
 outlines readily suggest to an observer an extraor- 
 dinary origin. The country around is well and 
 almost thickly wooded, the general aspect being 
 fertile and pleasing, even seen from a distance. It 
 
264 DESCRIPTION OF THE MOUNT. 
 
 is about eight miles, or even less, from Mount Gam- 
 bier, the sea being about ten miles farther on. 
 
 Enough has been said in the last chapter about 
 the latter mount; but, in taking leave of it, I cannot 
 refrain from mentioning the very beautiful view 
 that is to be obtained from its summit. Below, the 
 Blue Lake, with its smooth dark waters, and, a 
 little to the north, the white houses of the township 
 peeping out amid the trembling branches of the 
 trees; all around green patches, which wave more 
 and more in the breeze as the harvest approaches; 
 whilst many a curling column of smoke, or the 
 echoing of the whip in the forest around, tells that 
 the new colonist is making a home where industry 
 has never toiled before. ‘This is the picture imme- 
 diately around. 
 
 In the distance, to the north-west, Leake’s Bluff 
 rises, while the outlines of Mount M‘Intyre show 
 more dimly on the sight, and then a thin blue line, 
 extending from the west to nearly south-east, shows 
 where the ocean limits this part of South Australia. 
 Mount Gambier is not very high, but the country 
 is so uniformly level that a very small elevation 
 gives an extensive field of view. 
 
 Descending from it, and making for the cone 
 with which we are at present occupied, one is 
 astonished at the rich, the meadow-like appearance 
 of the country. After being out some time in 
 these colonies, we become used to a certain dried- 
 up appearance in every landscape, and learn to 
 forget the flowery pastures which used to meet. the 
 
BEAUTIFUL LAND. 265 
 
 eye at home in the month of June. At the sight 
 of the country at this mount the old ideas come 
 back with vividness. There is meadow land as 
 thickly studded with the buttercup and blue-bell 
 as the finest hay-field at home. ‘ Beautiful’ is an 
 adjective which comes short of the reality; and it 
 may be doubted whether Somersetshire, or Kent, 
 or Leicestershire could produce finer meadow land 
 than the country between Mount Gambier and 
 Mount Shanck. Alas! that this should be a rare 
 exception in South Australia. 
 
 There is rather an extraordinary thing common 
 in the rocks about half-way between the two 
 mounts: these are well-shaped holes in the 
 ground, close to each other, and though they de- 
 scend perpendicularly, no bottom can be found. 
 One is about a yard in diameter, others being less; 
 and through the moss which covers the sides one 
 can easily see that the fossiliferous limestone has 
 been bored through. If any solid substance is 
 dropped down, it can be heard rumbling for some 
 distance, the noise growing gradually fainter till it 
 dies away, but no stoppage of any kind can be 
 detected. Supposing the lava to have passed un- 
 derground in this direction, it would not, at first 
 sight, seem unreasonable to attribute their origin 
 to steam arising from the melted liquid: such is 
 the opinion of the people here. But this, perhaps, 
 is too easy a theory to be the correct one. They 
 may be accounted for like the sand-pipes in the 
 chalk; but as they occur in other places where there 
 
266 THE FLORA. 
 
 is little probability of the existence of lava, they 
 could scarcely have arisen from steam. They have 
 been already alluded to. 
 
 As thevoleano is approached, the ground becomes 
 broken and very hilly. The soil, too, is less rich, 
 as evidenced by the quantity of stringy bark (Lu- 
 calyptus fabrorum) and grass-tree (Xanthorrhaa 
 australis). The ferns (principally Pterts escu- 
 lenta, Asplenium laxum, and A. flabellifolium) 
 and underwood also become thick and intricate. 
 By and by, large blocks of porous lava are seen 
 strewn on the ground, and a peculiar brown ash- 
 dust rises under one’s feet on crossing the numerous 
 abrupt spurs which run out from the base of the 
 cone. 
 
 On ascending the steepest of these, a dense 
 tangled mass of vegetation comes into view, evi- 
 dently surrounding some hollow below. Descend- 
 ing towards it over treacherous and steep ground, 
 hidden by brush, and taking a sweep round, to 
 make the descent more easy, the bottom is reached, 
 and a pretty little lake comes in view. Situated as 
 it is in a kind of dell, it wears a most silent solitary 
 aspect. The lava boulders and limestone rocks, 
 however, jut out from the dense and high brush- 
 wood in black and white patches, the occasional 
 slopes of silver grass gracefully interrupt the 
 thicket, and, with the help of the trees which hang 
 their branches around, the loneliness is turned to 
 beauty. 
 
 It is one of those places where the beauty of the 
 
SMALL LAKE. 267 
 
 Australian flora can be seen to best advantage. 
 The tall dark tea-tree (Melaleuca paludosa) re- 
 flected in the smooth water, the ferns and mosses 
 making a carpet underneath the mimosa; the 
 Bursaria spinosa, and Calycothriz scabra with its 
 bushy pink flowers, filling up the interstices in the 
 brush; and the whole united by the delicate tendrils 
 of Comesperma volubilis with its network of blue 
 blossoms; make a scene as beautiful in its kind as 
 the vineyards of Provence or the rich palm scenes 
 of the torrid zone. No better idea could be 
 formed of this little place than from Sir W. Scott’s 
 description of that dell whence issued the skiff of 
 the ‘ Lady of the Lake.’ Had South Australia been 
 long enough inhabited, this spot would, perhaps, 
 have been invested with traditionary legends, mak- 
 ing the mount the scene of wild incantations and 
 the resort of fairies. 
 
 This little lake is just ‘at the foot of the cone, in 
 fact, almost situated in the side of it, and has arisen 
 from a small eruption which has proceeded from 
 its centre, probably at the time Mount Shanck was 
 in activity. Very little lava or ash has come from 
 it; of course some has come, and the sides being 
 near the point of eruption, the ejectamenta depo- 
 sited immediately after their egress in a partially 
 fused state have formed layers of scoriaceous lava, 
 which evidently commenced flowing back to the 
 crater before cooling. This is all that is found. 
 In some places the trap lies in layers just as it 
 cooled, and in others it is broken up into boulders. 
 
268 THE LAVA. 
 
 It is very porous, but more so on the top of the 
 layer than underneath; the latter fact is easily 
 explained. The pores owe their origin to the 
 escape of gases from the melted fluid, and these 
 gaseous bubbles would naturally rise to the surface, 
 but as the portion exposed to the air would cool 
 first, a cake would be formed on the outside which 
 would prevent the exit of the bubbles, and so they 
 would remain, after cooling, in the shape of almond- 
 like holes in the stone. Those who are familiar 
 with the interesting narrative of the voyage of the 
 Beagle, will doubtless remember the description of 
 the volcanic bombs found, I think, at Ascension 
 Island. Their close vesicular structure is explained 
 by supposing the outside to have cooled while the 
 interior was still in a state of fusion. This is 
 somewhat similar to what has been just said. The 
 same phenomenon has been used by Mr. Henessy 
 in illustration of his theory of the slow cooling of 
 the earth. | 
 
 At the north end of this basin and on the east 
 side the limestone is not covered with ash, but 
 stands out in small escarpments, even far above the 
 level of the lava. Itis blackened and was not 
 formerly fossiliferous, being of the uppermost 
 limestone strata, which in this formation seldom 
 contain many shells. Probably, the reason why 
 it stands so far above the water-level, and in broken 
 masses, 18 because the spot was disturbed by a 
 slight earthquake at the commencement of the 
 eruption, and its perpendicularity explains why it 
 
THE SMALL LAKE. 269 
 
 was not covered with ash or lava. It is evi- 
 dent that this lake was not so much an eruptive 
 crater as a spot whence issued steam and a small 
 quantity of ashes. 
 
 These are not unusual in volcanoes. There is 
 one by the side of Vesuvius, which, though it sends 
 forth ashes occasionally, confines its operations 
 nearly entirely to steam; there is another by the 
 side of Etna. What is the cause of them, or why 
 the main crater is not a sufficient outlet for the 
 steam, is not well understood, though, when they 
 occur independently of volcanoes (such as in the 
 case of the suffioni, in Tuscany), an explanation 
 has been readily found. ‘The one now described is 
 certainly a supplementary point of egress; for, had 
 it been a proper crater, it is quite large enough to 
 have given rise to a very large quantity of ash, 
 whereas, at present, the walls do not rise above 
 the plains. 
 
 At the side of this lake the cone of Mount Shanck 
 rises abruptly. The ascent is very steep, and, 
 though covered with thick grass, is only scantily 
 supplied with trees. Occasionally, a broken frag- 
 ment of porous lava is met with, but with these 
 exceptions, which are rare, the sides are smoothly 
 sloping. Going to the top of the cone (no easy 
 matter, for the inclination is enormously steep, and 
 the height 500 feet), you stand on the edge of the 
 crater. It is a deep dark abyss, the walls around 
 , forming a complete circle of almost equal height. 
 Its aspect is entirely different from Mount Gam- 
 
270 THE CRATER. 
 
 bier, though quite as grand. There is no water 
 at the bottom to give it that air of placid loneliness 
 which the other possesses; but the dark stone walls, 
 occasionally covered by a verdure which the shade 
 makes darker still, the suddenness of the descent 
 and the yawning look of the chasm give it a wild 
 sublimity, grand and awful of its kind. The whole 
 depth of the crater does not probably bring it much, 
 if at all, below the level of the limestone strata. 
 
 The shape of the basin is oblong, and the western 
 side the highest. In this particular it resembles 
 Mount Gambier, but there is not much difference 
 between the highest part and the rest of the walls, 
 the edge, though broken, being pretty equal. On 
 the west, or highest side, the descent to the bottom 
 is more precipitous and sloping than on the eastern. 
 In the latter case the sides slope down half-way to - 
 a kind of platform, and then descend in broken 
 undulations to the bottom. 
 
 On the exterior of the mount, at the west side, 
 there are the remains of a former crater. It is just 
 a half-circular wall, joining on to the present cone. 
 Its form, however, will be better understood by 
 explaining how it has been changed to the state in 
 which it is now seen. Supposing the circle of ash 
 to have been once complete, of which fact there 
 can be but very little doubt, the point of ejection — 
 must have been in its centre. When this point 
 cooled, and the eruption had ceased from that part, 
 another broke out right in the middle of the eastern 
 wall. This, after breaking away all the wall which 
 
THE CRATER WALLS. 271 
 
 was over it, deposited its ashes, scoris, &c., in a 
 circle round its point of ejection, thus cutting the 
 old crater in two, and, perhaps, taking the ma- 
 terials of the side where the second eruption broke 
 out to form new walls. | 
 
 The most perfect cone is, therefore, the most 
 recent, and it has certainly been the most extensive. 
 Lhe old crater is not more than half its height. 
 The sides of it are steep, both in the interior and 
 externally. They are, apparently, more loose and 
 more decomposed than the newer crater. The ash 
 seems a white powdery tufa, with fragments of 
 felspar, porphyry, and scorize embedded. There are 
 large trees growing both on the outside of the wall 
 and in the basin, but none on the side formed by 
 the newer cone. Tall gum trees are common; and 
 this fact is the more remarkable, as there are no 
 Eucalypti to be seen on the inside of any of the 
 Mount Gambier craters, and there are no trees at 
 all on the inside of the Mount Shanck cone. Though 
 shrubs abound, being newer, and the ash less de- 
 composed, there is, probably, no soil in the latter 
 of sufficient depth to support them. The side of 
 Mount Shanck which slopes up from the old crater 
 is so fearfully steep as to be almost precipitous, 
 and it would be almost impossible to ascend the 
 mount from that side. 
 
 Returning to the top of the walls of the higher 
 cone, and looking into the basin, the sides are seen 
 to be composed of regular layers of ash, which have 
 hardened into a vast conglomerate, like the higher 
 
4 
 
 272 THE CRATER WALLS. 
 
 wall at Mount Gambier. In some cases, there has 
 been a backward flow of the lava which has bubbled 
 out. It appears twisted into strange wreaths, like 
 the gnarled roots of some huge tree. The sides are 
 nearly entirely covered with vegetation, except at 
 the top, but there are places where the black ash 
 is undecomposed, which do not bear a sign of vege- 
 tation from the top to the bottom. Looking down 
 the crater is exactly like looking into a large funnel, 
 so very narrow is the bottom in proportion to the 
 rim. There is no break in the side, nor outlet of 
 any kind for lava; in fact, the whole process of the 
 eruption seems to have been limited to throwing 
 up masses of ash until it had burned itself out. 
 
 It is interesting, however, to know that the state 
 in which the crater is now seen is probably the 
 appearance it wore (with the exception of the 
 vegetation) at the time of its activity. When Sir 
 Humphry Davy visited Vesuvius, he says that 
 whenever the smoke cleared away, and he could 
 look down into the crater, there was no fire to be 
 seen, but it appeared like a deep black funnel com- 
 ing to a sharp point, from which smoke and steam 
 were rising. Every now and then, a noise was 
 heard like distant thunder, which, coming nearer, 
 seemed to end in an explosion at the bottom of the 
 crater, casting up volumes of ash into the air, and 
 then all was quiet again. The crater of Mount 
 Etna, as described by Sir William Hamilton, seems 
 to be just similar,—a dark funnel, with no fire 
 visible, casting up ash in an occasional explosion. 
 
THE BOTTOM OF THE CRATER. 273 
 
 Thus it appears that both resembled, in their quiet 
 state, Mount Shanck’s present aspect. 
 
 There is one peculiarity in the layers of ash 
 which is worthy of notice. On the western side, 
 close to the higher wall, there is a deep indentation 
 or notch in the lip of the crater. This appears to 
 have been made, after the deposition of the side, by 
 some explosion or other violent cause, because the 
 strata are seen to be sloping from the bottom up to 
 this spot, that is, dipping away on each side from 
 the indentation. This shows clearly that the part 
 in question has been a high point in the side of the 
 cone. Indeed, it would appear, from the whole 
 appearance of the interior of the crater, that this 
 place has been somewhat similar to the highest 
 peak of Mount Gambier, for the general bearing of 
 the strata of ash conglomerate is towards the point 
 where there is now only one indentation at the 
 summit. There must have been an elevation there 
 originally. Probably there was a peak, but the 
 walls being too narrow and steep to afford a good 
 foundation, it toppled down into the old basin, which 
 is just on the other side. | 
 
 It has been said that there is no outlet for lava 
 visible, that is, that there is no side of the crater 
 wall broken down for a lava current. On the north 
 side there is a very distinct stream of lava. It 
 comes directly from the side of the walls in a high 
 heap of scoriaceous fragments, and then, instead of 
 continuing in a regular stream, is traced onward 
 by a succession of hillocks, the first three of which 
 
 i 
 
274 LAVA STREAM. 
 
 are upwards of twenty feet high, with very little 
 elevation of lava between them. It makes a rapid 
 curve to the southward, and after about fifty yards 
 divides into two or three separate streams, still 
 preserving the same uneven outline, only that the 
 hillocks are much smaller, until the stream spreads 
 itself over the surface and becomes altogether lost 
 in the course of about half a mile. 
 
 During its course, the ground appears very much 
 broken. “When it is said that the ground is broken, 
 it is meant not only broken up into hillocks, but 
 also covered throughout its length and breadth 
 with fragments of scorie, from one to three feet in 
 diameter. Sometimes these boulders are gathered 
 into mounds, as though piled up by art, and again 
 they are found lining a deep hollow; but whether 
 rising into hillocks, or scattered about as if thrown 
 from one centre, they all keep a regular line, at 
 times diverging from due north and south, but only 
 to make a slight curve and then return to the 
 original course. It appears, in fact, like the course 
 of a liquid, and this was really the case. | 
 
 It seems, for many reasons, very clear that this 
 stream proceeded from the ancient crater, and not 
 from the more modern one. In the first place, such 
 a stream could hardly have forced its way from 
 underneath the walls and not have caused them to 
 give way above, or, at all events, to have shown 
 that they had been subjected to some pressure. 
 But, on the contrary, the outline is quite unbroken, 
 and does not at all appear to have been pressed upon 
 
LAVA STREAM. 275 
 
 from underneath. If, however, we suppose the 
 lava to have proceeded from the old crater, and that 
 the ash was subsequently deposited on the top from 
 the second eruption, we can easily understand the 
 appearances. Again, the view of the interior does 
 not at all convey the idea that the lava had pro- 
 ceeded from it. But the elevation on the eastern 
 side at the bottom of the basin seems like a part 
 of the old stream, the rest of which has been 
 destroyed by the breaking out of fires underneath. 
 
 Many have imagined that this lava stream, from 
 the fact of being piled up so irregularly in heaps, 
 is nothing but the scoriz which has been derived 
 from the crater; but, on examining the ground, it 
 will be seen at once that the scoriw could not have 
 arisen from the adjacent crater, because it takes its 
 origin close to the north side of it, and then runs 
 along in an undeyviating line till at least half a mile 
 past it. It need scarcely be further stated, that, if 
 it came from the crater, it would be scattered at 
 least half-way round in a semicircular form, the 
 larger fragments being generally nearer the cone. 
 But itis not so. There is a regular straight line 
 nearly north and south, occupying only one side 
 of the volcano, and pursuing its course quite inde- 
 pendently of it. 
 
 This line of lava was, then, a current from Mount 
 Shanck’s ancient crater; but, in supposing it to be so, 
 it is not easy to account for the broken undulatory 
 character of the scoriz. It has been stated that 
 the pieces were piled up together, and sometimes 
 
 Tr 2 
 
276 PILES OF SCORLA. 
 
 seemed to surround hollows in the ground. ‘This 
 state of things could have been produced in two 
 ways :—The first is, by supposing the upper crust 
 of lava to have been heaved up, after cooling, by a 
 new current running underneath. This would raise 
 the stone almost upright in slabs, and probably, 
 if they broke afterwards, would form the piles of 
 scorie which are seen. But some of the piles are 
 over twenty feet high near the point of eruption. 
 This might arise from the comparative coolness of 
 the lava, which would make it flow slowly in a very 
 thick stream. To bear this out, the following pas- 
 sage from Wittich is cited :— 
 
 ‘There is probably no other liquid.matter which 
 is possessed of such a glegree of cohesion as running 
 lava. We must come to this conclusion when we 
 find that this matter does not spread over the in- 
 clined plane down which it runs, but forms a ridge 
 having exactly the shape of an embankment, or a 
 rampart with regularly sloping sides. The ridge 
 is commonly of considerable height. Even small 
 streams of lava are found to rise from ten to twelve 
 feet above the adjacent ground. Larger streams 
 are sometimes from forty to fifty feet high. The 
 lava which issued from Skaptaar Jokiil was at 
 some places from ninety to a hundred feet above 
 the ground over which it had flowed.’ * 
 
 A second cause of the piling of the stream might 
 be the explosion of disengaged gases, where the 
 upper part of the current had cooled and the under 
 
 * Curiosities of Physical Geography. London: 1855. 
 
PILES OF SCORIE. . 277 
 
 was still flowing. In illustration of this, a further 
 quotation from the same author will be pardoned : 
 —‘ Occasionally a very loud report, similar to the 
 firing of a cannon, is heard to proceed from a stream 
 of lava. This happens when the lava runs over a 
 swampy ground or avery moist soil. The sudden 
 conversion of the water into steam, and its decom- 
 position, produce a commotion which for some mo- 
 ments is able to stop the progress of the stream. 
 The stream breaks with great noise through the 
 mass, tears asunder the crust of scoria which en- 
 velopes it, and throws both the lava and scoria 
 into great confusion. Asa portion of the stream is 
 decomposed, the hydrogen explodes, and produces 
 the loud report above mentioned and the accom- 
 panying flash.’ This would be more likely to 
 happen when the lava first touched the ground, and 
 consequently near the crater, where most disturb- 
 ance of the lava stream of Mount Shanck is found. 
 
 The whole thing may, however, have arisen from 
 the manner in which the lava flowed. Most ob- 
 servers who have had an opportunity of witness- 
 ing volcanic eruptions, such as Sir W. Hamilton, 
 Dolomieu, Dr. Clarke, &c., have stated that a flow 
 of lava generally moves (when cooled to a certain 
 extent) in large uneven sheets; but this refers to 
 localities where the flow is very extensive. In 
 those places where the ejected matter is small in 
 quantity and only molten in the centre, the stream 
 (according to Mr. Scrope, quoted by Lyell) is like 
 a huge heap of cinders, rolling over and over as it 
 
278 LAVA STREAM. 
 
 went onward. The following is the passage :— 
 ‘The surface of the lava which deluged the Val 
 del Bove (Etna) consists of rocky angular blocks, 
 tossed together in the utmost disorder. Nothing 
 can be more rugged or more unlike the smooth 
 uneven superficies which those who are unac- 
 quainted with volcanic countries may have pic- 
 tured to themselves, in a mass of matter which has 
 consolidated from a liquid state. Mr. Scrope ob- 
 served this current, in the year 1819, slowly ad- 
 vancing down a considerable slope at the rate of 
 about a yard an hour, nine months after its emis- 
 sion. ‘The lower stratum being arrested by the 
 resistance of the ground, the upper or central part 
 gradually protruded itself, and, being unsupported, 
 fell down. This, in its turn, was covered by a 
 mass of more liquid lava, which swelled over it 
 from above: the current had all the appearance of 
 a huge heap of rough and large cinders, rolling 
 over and over, chiefly by the effect of propulsion 
 from behind. The contraction of the crust as it 
 solidified, and the friction of the scoriform cakes 
 against one another, produced a crackling sound. 
 Within the crevices a dull red heat might be seen 
 by night, and vapour arising in considerable quan- 
 tity was visible by day.’ * 
 
 Now, it will be observed that, in the case we have 
 to consider, the flow of lava was very small, and 
 therefore must have solidified very shortly after its 
 
 * Lyell, Principles of Geology, 9th edit.; see also Scrope, on 
 
 Vov.eanoes, 
 
ITS ORIGIN. 279 
 
 emission from the crater, and so probably, as the 
 heaps are larger near the crater, and smaller as the 
 stream is followed on, it is because as the first became 
 cool, and was rolling over in heaps, .fresh lava flowed 
 underneath, and so raised them higher and higher. 
 
 And now, as to the question whether Mount 
 Shanck is in any way connected with Mount Gam- 
 bier. Let us first suppose that the lava of the 
 former flowed towards the sea underground, a 
 supposition for which reasons have been given in 
 a former chapter, would the mere underground 
 flow of an immense fluid mass of fire give rise to a 
 volcano like Mount Shanck? Very likely the ob- 
 struction of an underground flow of lava, which 
 would cause a large igneous subterranean lake to 
 collect, would, by its bubbling and seething, give 
 rise to a sort of crater, just as fissures In a cone 
 form a lateral crater. We may safely, however, 
 answer in the negative in this case. Certainly 
 Mount Shanck does not appear so large as to have 
 been a lateral crater, but then its distance from the 
 other mount, and the fact that there is evidence of 
 several separate eruptions, point out two distinct 
 foci of disturbance. 
 
 The connection between these two extinct 
 craters was of a deeper origin. They both belong 
 to some great area of disturbance, which not only 
 connected them, but also the volcanoes. to be de- 
 scribed in the next chapter. Probably no two of the 
 craters of either of the mounts were in activity at 
 the same time, because, as they must be regarded 
 
280 CONCLUSION. 
 
 as vents or safety-valves, by which the pent-up 
 fires underneath sought a relief for their steam and 
 gases, it is difficult to imagine that one point of 
 eruption would not relieve localities so near as 
 these two cones. This is, however, a matter more 
 of connection than fact. 
 
 It has not been mentioned, that for four miles 
 round Mount Gambier the country is very hilly. 
 These elevations may have been caused by earth- 
 quakes which preceded the eruption. An exami- 
 nation of these hills might be very interesting, as 
 showing the way the earth-waves were transmitted, 
 and what was the extent of the shock and manner 
 of the disturbance. Very little disturbance, appa- 
 rently, took place round Mount Shanck, though the 
 country is slightly hilly in its immediate vicinity, 
 and one or two circular pits occur. 
 
 It may also be stated, that lava from the second 
 eruption of Mount Shanck may have flowed to the 
 sea, because the trap which is found on the coast 
 is directly to the south of the latter, and, conse- 
 quently, to the south of Mount Gambier, which is 
 almost due north. No difference in the compo- 
 sition of the trap which is found on the coast can 
 be traced, even so much as a separation of the 
 strata, for it dips rapidly into the sea, and very 
 little of it can be seen. Whatever other traces exist 
 on the coast is difficult to say; for the sand, as 
 before remarked, is drifting up so fast that even 
 trees are buried in its encroachments. 
 
 The coast line, as seen from the mount, is barren 
 
CONCLUSION. 281 
 
 and dismal enough; but on a closer view it bears 
 so wild and lonely an aspect as almost to make one 
 shudder. Large and dreary swamps covered over 
 with dank vegetation, white sand-hills bearing 
 patches of salt bush, and cold and gloomy cliffs are 
 all that meet the eye; while the sea breaks in with 
 such a heavy surf, that even in calm weather its 
 solemn roar may be heard for miles around. It is 
 seldom visited by human beings; and when a vessel 
 _ was wrecked there some time ago, the dead bodies of 
 the poor creatures who escaped drowning had fallen 
 to pieces in the rigging before their remains were 
 discovered. Forlorn and sad as it is, nothing could 
 be more in keeping with such solitude to think 
 that here volcanic fires rolled in times gone by. 
 A long time ago it must have been — how long, in- 
 deed, may perhaps perplex mankind till time shall 
 be no longer. A thin seam of shells in the sands, 
 far above the water, tells us that even the sea has 
 retreated since then—that the waters now surging 
 at a distance were once beating their monotonous 
 music on the spot where we can now stand, bring- 
 ing into competition the noise of fires and the rush 
 of waters. . The stones, so full of strange histories, 
 tell us that it is a long time since the fires rose; 
 and the trees and flowers, quietly growing on the 
 softened rocks in the crater itself, tell us, by their 
 tranquil growth, that the fire has long since fulfilled 
 its Author’s work and disappeared, leaving for ages 
 the black and empty chasm staring into the heavens, 
 lonely and desolate. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE SMALLER VOLCANOES. 
 
 SOUTHERN END OF THE DISTRICT ONLY YVOLCANIC.—LAKE 
 LEAKE. — LAKE EDWARD.— CRATERS OF SUBSIDENCE.— LEAKE’S 
 BLUFF. — MOUNT MUIRHEAD. — MOUNT BURR. — MOUNT M‘IN- 
 TYRE AND MOUNT EDWARD.—LINE OF DISTURBANCE CONNECTED 
 PROBABLY WITH VICTORIAN CRATERS.— PERIOD OF THEIR 
 DURATION, AND THE TIME WHICH HAS ELAPSED SINCE THEIR 
 EXTINCTION. —SUBMARINE CRATERS.—JULIA PERCY ISLAND. 
 — CONTROVERSY ON CRATERS OF ELEVATION AND SUBSIDENCE. 
 — BOTH APPLICABLE HERE. —TRAP NOT ALWAYS CONNECTED 
 WITH GOLD. 
 
 N the last chapters, we have been occupied in 
 examining those extinct volcanoes of this 
 district which rise in the form of cones to such 
 a height as to entitle them to be described as 
 mountains. In this chapter we have still to do 
 with craters, but in the form of lakes, and with 
 volcanic phenomena which are neither cones nor 
 craters, but dykes or faults. 
 
 It has been already mentioned, that the volcanic 
 disturbance of this district has been entirely con- 
 fined to the southern end, and the distance between 
 any of the craters, even of the disturbed district, 
 is so small, that if a line were drawn encircling 
 the whole of it, it would not enclose very many. 
 square miles. The most northerly of the craters 
 
LAKE LEAKE. 283 
 
 is Lake Leake. This is a large lake, about a 
 quarter of a mile in diameter, very deep in the 
 middle, but shallow on the edges, with reeds and 
 bushes growing all round. The banks are very even, 
 seldom rising more than ten or twelve feet above the 
 water, except on the eastern side, where there is a 
 sudden rounded eminence, about sixty or seventy 
 feet in height. This is entirely composed of volcanic 
 ashes, enclosing, here and there, small fragments 
 of scorie. This hill slopes away pretty gradually 
 on the side opposed to the water, but on the other 
 side it 1s precipitous, descending very abruptly to 
 the water’s edge. With the exception of some 
 black mud enclosing scoriz in the banks all round, 
 these are all the volcanic evidences of this place. 
 Close to it, however, and a little to the south, 
 there is another crater (Lake Edward) rather 
 smaller in dimensions, and having no eminence on 
 its banks. This is also an extinct crater, as may be 
 easily ascertained by a close inspection of the black 
 mud which surrounds the edge of it. It is very 
 deep in the middle. Both these lakes are twenty- 
 two miles from Mount Gambier. They are rather 
 singular volcanoes, and I am not aware that any 
 parallel to them is to be found elsewhere. The fact 
 _ of their being so wide and deep, showing that some 
 very extensive igneous disturbance must have 
 caused them, and yet to have given rise to a very 
 little ash and no lava, seems exceedingly strange ; 
 in fact, they bear out the view already taken of the 
 eruption of Mounts Gambier and Shanck, which 
 
284 THE LAKE’S ORIGIN. 
 
 makes the craters rather exceptional instances, or 
 departures from the usual manner in which ‘vol- 
 canic eruptions take place. Instead of these lakes 
 being craters of elevation, they have been craters 
 of subsidence. 
 
 On the banks of both lakes there are masses of 
 limestone cropping out, occasionally showing that 
 the strata were not upheaved, but the lake formed 
 by a part of it falling in from volcanic disturb- 
 ance underneath, and giving rise to a chasm through 
 which ashes were cast forth. It appears very strange 
 that an eruption which would cause such large 
 openings in the surface should have been followed 
 by so very small an amount of ejectamenta. Pro- 
 bably these chasms may have been caused by the 
 void arising underneath the surface from lava that 
 was pouring out elsewhere. There are two small 
 hills, perhaps not more than 200 feet high, very 
 near the lakes, and there is no trap rock visible 
 upon them, yet their rounded outline and isolated 
 position suggest a connection with the igneous dis- 
 turbance below ; moreover, their strong resemblance 
 to hills to be mentioned subsequently, which are 
 certainly volcanic, places their origin almost beyon 
 doubt. eal 
 
 Returning, again, in a southerly and somewhat 
 westerly direction, we come upon Leake’s Bluff. 
 This is a high bluff, as its name imports, raised, 
 perhaps, 500 feet above the level of the sur- 
 rounding plain, almost precipitous on its south- 
 eastern side, and sloping away quite gradually on 
 
LEAKE’S BLUFF. 286 
 
 the NW. The precipitous side is trap rock, very 
 slightly vesicular, brown, compact, and ringing 
 under the hammer. On the summit there is some 
 of the wnaltered coralline limestone, which. has 
 been tilted up by the trap rock, and it continues 
 down the sloping side into the plain. There are 
 a few irregularities in the slope such as would be 
 caused by the upraising of such a mass of limestone 
 and its doubling over on itself at the foot; beyond 
 this, however, the country around does not seem 
 to have been much disturbed, except in the direc- 
 tion of Mount Gambier, where hillocks occur like 
 undulations of the surface, which become higher 
 and larger until within two miles of the latter 
 crater, where the country all round is disturbed, 
 as if the eruption had been preceded or accom- 
 panied by earthquakes. 
 
 This bluff deserves some consideration. In the 
 first place, it has given rise to a fault in the lime- 
 stone strata; that is, the continuity is broken by 
 the escarpments of trap rock, and the sequence of 
 the strata which have been followed thus far must 
 again be sought on the top of the bluff. On the other 
 side of the escarpment the hill slopes gradually 
 down, making the outline like the segment of a 
 circle. I suppose that at the point of junction 
 between. the trap and the limestone, the latter 
 would prove to be very considerably altered, but 
 there is no opportunity afforded for an examination. 
 
 Both rocks are very much decomposed, being not 
 only disentegrated and covered with grass, but also 
 
286 MOUNT MUIRHEAD. 
 
 even with trees; but the limestone on the surface, 
 which crops out at a little distance from the summit, 
 is decidedly unaltered. The trap could not have 
 been upheaved to its present position in a state of 
 fusion, not only because the outlines of the escarp- 
 ment appear clearly fractured, as though broken 
 when in a state of solidity, but also because the 
 general character of the disturbance is against such 
 a supposition. It must have been then that a 
 large quantity of liquid lava was injected under 
 the limestone, and there cooled under the pressure 
 of the immense mass of stone above and the force 
 from below which injected it; a second pressure 
 from below upheaved it bodily into the position 
 in which it is now seen. It is impossible now to 
 trace the extent of the fissure caused by this 
 upheaval, in consequence of the manner in which 
 the strata are decomposed and altered on the sur- 
 face. Doubtless the fault continues some consider- 
 able distance on each side. Had this been a place 
 where there were two distinct fossiliferous forma- 
 tions, more remarkable results would now be 
 seen. 
 
 The strata containing fossils belonging to one 
 period might be traced continuously with one older 
 than itself, which had been raised to its level, but 
 there is only one kind of fossiliferous rock here, 
 and therefore no mistakes can arise. 
 
 North-west of Leake’s Bluff is Mount Muirhead, 
 which is a conical hill, with trap rock on the sum- 
 mit, and limestone on the sides all round. This is 
 
MOUNT BURR. 287 
 
 a trap dyke. It would appear that not only was 
 the trap injected through the strata, but it flowed 
 a little on the summit, for it is like a cap on the 
 top, and very vesicular. The soft nature of the 
 limestone strata caused it to yield a great deal 
 to the pressure underneath before allowing the 
 igneous matter to break through, giving rise to 
 a dome-like appearance to the base of the hill. 
 In other places, where the strata are very hard and 
 compact, and lying near other eminences, which 
 enable it better to resist pressure, the trap dykes 
 make a clean cut through, without in the least 
 raising the rocks in the vicinity, only pushing them 
 a little back. 
 
 Mount Burr, rather more to the eastward, is a 
 bluff like the one first described, with this difference, 
 that it is perhaps a little higher, and has no trap 
 rock visible on the escarpment. Perhaps it slopes 
 away more rapidly on the north-western side, and 
 there can be no doubt that it owes its origin to 
 an upheaval somewhat similar to that exercised 
 in the case of Leake’s Bluff. The limestone crops 
 out in immense quantities on the summit, and ap- 
 pears much. broken, as though by pressure. Pro- 
 bably, the reason why the trap does not appear 
 is because the limestone is either thicker and more 
 abundant at this particular point, or the trap was 
 injected from a more deep-seated locality. 
 
 Again to the north-west, is Mount Graham, a 
 trap dyke, like Mount Muirhead, except that the hill 
 is more rounded, and extends more like a ridge, in 
 
288 MOUNT GRAHAM. 
 
 a north-west direction. On the summit the rock 
 is very vesicular. 
 
 About four miles to the west of Mount Burr 
 there is another mount, called Mount M‘Intyre, 
 and this continues on in a chain with a hill called 
 Mount Edward, until close to Lake Leake. This 
 is also a hill with limestone at the base, and trap 
 rocks at the top. It is more prolonged than the 
 other hills, and less conical, but in other respects 
 it is just like them. 
 
 After Mount M‘Intyre there are no more vol- 
 canic evidences. ‘The range disappears into a lime- 
 stone ridge, very little elevated above the plains. 
 The distance between Leake’s Bluff and Mount 
 Graham is scarcely eighteen miles, the two others 
 (Mounts Muirhead and Burr) lying between, at 
 the distance of a few miles apart. ‘There is little 
 or no connection between them, not even a range of 
 the most insignificant proportions. They stand, 
 on the contrary, almost isolated from each other, 
 only connected by the identity of their bearing 
 from-Mount Gambier. | 
 
 No one can doubt that these numerous evidences 
 of former volcanic disturbance in this district 
 have been connected together. Not only is'this to 
 be inferred from their continuing in the same line, 
 but also because they are always within a short 
 distance from each other, and confined to the 
 southern part of the district —the only part, indeed, 
 - where there is any volcanic evidence at all. 
 
 It remains to be asked, what connection can be 
 
CONNECTION OF THE VOLCANOES. bo 26e 
 
 supposed to have existed between them? It is a 
 well-known fact in geology, that volcanic disturb- 
 ance is very seldom confined to one particular 
 spot, either in the past history of the earth or 
 in what is taking place on the earth’s surface at 
 present. One active volcano is very seldom found 
 alone, and extinct craters are generally grouped 
 together in what are termed volcanic districts. 
 The only apparent exception to the rule is in 
 marine craters. These are isolated at times, and 
 then are either extinct, such as Trinidad; Tristan 
 d’ Acunha, or active, as St. Paul’s or Graham Island. 
 In the latter cases, the evidence that there has 
 been no other disturbance is only negative, the 
 depth of the sea around preventing any certainty 
 as to the absence of other craters, from the diffi- 
 culty of an examination. ‘There are, however, 
 many instances of extinct and active marine craters 
 being grouped together in large numbers: the Gala- 
 pagos Archipelago, which, according to Mr. Charles 
 Darwin, must have contained upwards of 3,000 
 craters, all extinct, and the Azores, where a great 
 many signs of activity still exist. 
 
 From the fact that these phenomena have always 
 been found associated together, it has been inferred 
 by many geologists that there are, or have been, 
 in volcanic districts, under the upper crust of the 
 earth, lakes or reservoirs of igneous matter, whose 
 gases and pent-up forces sought egress in many 
 points, perhaps at some distance apart from each 
 other. These districts may be of immense size, 
 
 U 
 
290 IGNEOUS RESERVOIRS. 
 
 such as the volcanic parts of the Andes, in South 
 America, which occupy so immense an area, or of 
 the moderate dimensions of the locality which I 
 have just described. Now, I think there can be but 
 little doubt that Mount Gambier, Mount Shanck, 
 and the other places mentioned above, haye be- 
 longed to one and the same area of volcanic matter, 
 underneath the upper crust; and the general north- 
 westerly bearing of the disturbance is due to the 
 greater diameter being in that direction, or from a 
 weakness in the strata tending to make a fissure 
 more easy in that line than in any other. Pro- 
 
 bably this district was not an independent mass of 
 ~ fused matter, but rather an offshoot from one more 
 extensive. At about fifty miles east of Mount 
 Gambier, on the Victoria side of the boundary, 
 there commences an immense volcanic district, 
 which may be traced, with very little interruption, 
 to Geelong (250 miles distant), by immense masses 
 of trap rock and extinct craters of large dimen- 
 sions. ‘This kind of country extends considerably 
 to the north of this line; and it is underneath the 
 trap rocks thus found, at the junction of the Silu- 
 rian slates and ancient granites, that the extensive 
 Australian gold-fields are worked. This large 
 tract of country has evidently belonged to one im- 
 mense subterranean igneous lake, and the various 
 craters which appear are evidences of the manner 
 in which it has sought relief from time to time. 
 It appears rather more ancient than the Mount 
 Gambier district, though both have arisen in a very 
 recent tertiary period. 
 
CONNECTION OF VICTORIAN CRATERS. 291 
 
 If this is to be accounted for, I will give what 
 appears to me to be a reason, though it is quite 
 theoretical, and may be far more fanciful than real. 
 After a long duration of activity, I imagine there 
 was a period of repose, during which not only the 
 trap rocks and the lava streams on the surface 
 have had time to cool, but also the upper crust of 
 the fiery subterranean: lake itself. Supposing now 
 a second, but less violent, period to supervene; 
 the cooled crust and the overlying rocks might 
 prevent an outbreak directly above, and, therefore, 
 the fiery matter would find an egress at the sides, 
 where the superincumbent strata was weak, or at 
 the sea, where there was much less resistance to be 
 overcome. ‘This may appear a rather extravagant 
 hypothesis; but in all probability the depth of the 
 subterranean disturbance might have been very 
 great, and the land on the Victoria side being much 
 higher than about Mount Gambier, the actual re- 
 sistance to pressure, whether by a cooled crust of 
 lava or surface trap rock, may have been greater, 
 on the whole, than the force required to send 
 the lava in the direction of the latter place. This 
 would account for our volcanic district being more 
 recent, and the existence of submarine craters near 
 it, which, though already described, will be here 
 briefly noticed. 
 
 _ At Portland, as already mentioned, there is most 
 distinct evidence of subterranean volcanic action. 
 The strata of basalt underneath the Upper Crag, 
 
 and on the south side of the bay, over the Lower 
 u 2 
 
292 SUBMARINE CRATER 
 
 Crag, have been alluded to. These have, probably, 
 proceeded from an extinct crater, which lies about 
 one mile from the shore. It is called the Lawrence 
 Rock,* and consists of a small flat rock, surrounded 
 by a scattered reef forming a rough circle, and 
 between it and the shore another long low reef, 
 composed of scoriaceous masses of lava. The rock 
 itself is stratified. The uppermost layer consists 
 of decomposed trachyte, of a cream-white colour, 
 containing disseminated crystals of mica. Under- 
 neath this there is a thick stratum of amygdaloidal 
 lava, the base of which is black. The lime which 
 is in all the vesicles is of a transparent waxy ap- 
 pearance. “Under this, again, the stratum is a mass 
 of tufaceous deposits, of a brown colour, loose and 
 friable, and containing small fragments of scorie. 
 There are no trap dykes near, unless some of the 
 projecting rocks formed of compact basalt may be 
 considered such. 
 
 It would perhaps be taking too much for granted 
 to assert that the rock is the precise site of the vol- 
 cano, though the semicircular reef near it seems to 
 favour such a notion. At any rate, the nature of 
 the strata, composed, as they are, of ejectamenta 
 of such thickness, makes it probable that the source 
 of them could not have been very far distant. 
 There is an island, called the Julia Percy Island, 
 close to Portland, but at such a distance from the 
 land as to render it invisible, except on very clear 
 
 * Running through this rock there is a thick trap dyke. This may 
 
 probably be the ‘cooled chimney,’ now forming a hard rock, which 
 has resisted the sea better than the ash deposits around. 
 
AT PORTLAND. 293 
 
 days. This is voleanic. I have not had an oppor- 
 tunity of examining it, but I am informed that it 
 principally consists of compact basalt. It may 
 have been another site of volcanic emanations, but 
 this is only conjecture. It is evident, however, 
 that the land has been upheaved considerably since 
 the outpouring of these igneous rocks. That of the 
 Lawrence Rock is overlaid by the crag, which could 
 only have accumulated in a pretty deep sea; that 
 of the island is overlaid in a similar manner. The 
 evidence of this is discussed in another chapter, 
 and need not be recapitulated here. 
 
 Whether or not this crater was subsequent to 
 the eruption of Mount Gambier, can only be decided 
 by a very minute examination of the locality. 
 There is one evidence, however, offered here which 
 it may be well to allude to. The disturbance of 
 this district, as shown in the large number of ex- 
 tinct craters, must have extended over a long period. 
 of time. It might be possible that one or more of 
 the craters which are at a distance from each other 
 were in activity at the same period; but this can 
 hardly be supposed of the craters which are close 
 to one. another, such as the different lakes at 
 Mounts Gambier and Shanck. This is more espe- 
 cially seen by the manner in which the ash and 
 lava are deposited, as already described. But not 
 only are they, then, separate monuments of periods 
 of disturbance, but they show that long intervals 
 of rest intervened between them. Mr. Poulet 
 Scrope states, that when a volcano has been so 
 
294 CRATERS OF ELEVATION. 
 
 long at rest that the melted rock has had time to 
 cool, the next eruption is obliged to make a new 
 crater, because the solidified rock in the old chimney 
 makes an irresistible barrier. The occurrence, then, 
 of so many craters shows not only that the erup- 
 tions were distinct, but also were separated from 
 each other at such an interval as at least to allow 
 the old lava in the chimney time to cool and become 
 solid. Remembering, now, the remarks which have 
 been made on the slow cooling of volcanic pro- 
 ducts, and bearing in mind the number of con- 
 tiguous craters, we can easily understand how 
 long a period of disturbance this district must 
 have witnessed. The length of the period can 
 only be inferred by analogy. Vesuvius has been 
 known at one time to be at rest for many hundred 
 years, and then its eruptions have been at irregular 
 periods, sometimes many years separated. Pro- 
 bably at Mount Gambier the different craters had 
 time not only to cool, but to allow plants and 
 shrubs to mature inside them, for charcoal is often 
 found between the different layers of ash and 
 basalt. 
 
 In describing these craters, and their mode of 
 eruption, Von Buch’s theory has very often been 
 cited as to the crater-elevation theory. This may 
 need some explanation. Some time ago, the geolo- 
 gical world was much puzzled to decide between 
 two rival hypotheses. One was Von Buch’s theory, 
 which supposed all volcanoes to have been what 
 was termed craters of elevation. The theory, ap- 
 
CRATERS OF ELEVATION. 295 
 
 parently, was formed rather to meet a difficulty 
 than from any stamp of probability it wore in other 
 respects. It was supposed that when lava and ash 
 ' conglomerate were found on the side of volcanoes, 
 in very highly-inclined beds, it was impossible for 
 them to have remained there, had their inclination 
 been so great when they were deposited. To meet 
 this difficulty, it was imagined that all eruptive 
 craters commenced their operations by forming 
 cracks or fissures through the level surface, and 
 outpouring ash and lava upon it; that, after this 
 _ had become consolidated to some considerable thick- 
 ness, the whole was uplifted by a subsequent con- 
 vulsion and formed the cone. By this means, of 
 course the beds became highly inclined, the incli- 
 nation in proportion to the height. This theory 
 met with universal approval, not only because it 
 seemed to meet all difficulties, but because it was 
 propagated by one of the most eminent European 
 geologists, whose services to science cannot be too 
 highly extolled. There are instances which seemed 
 to favour the theory. ‘The cone of the volcano of 
 Jorullo was uplifted 1,000 feet in a single night. 
 Other instances were also supposed to be furnished 
 by the records of what had taken place in the erup- 
 tions of the Bay of Baie. There were, however, 
 geologists who objected to the general application 
 of the hypothesis. However well it might account 
 for what had taken place in one or two. localities, 
 they said it was with difficulty reconcilable with 
 what was observed elsewhere, and many facts were 
 
296 SOUTH-EASTERN CRATERS. 
 
 directly against it. Sir Charles Lyell was one of 
 the first to object to its being applied as a part of 
 the history of every volcano. He pointed out that 
 at Mount Etna the trap dykes which had been in- 
 jected in the earlier eruptions remain quite vertical 
 even now, and that the Val del Bove showed more 
 signs of subsidence than upheaval. He went far- 
 ther, and tried to show, that even those craters 
 (such as Palma) which Von Buch had personally 
 explored, and declared to be craters of elevation, 
 were not so certainly the result of such a process. 
 
 Little by little, like all theories which have been 
 formed more to meet difficulties than suggested by 
 facts, it has, of late, fallen much into disrepute: 
 whatever truth there was in it, it was certainly 
 too generally applied. 
 
 The object of mentioning this controversy is to 
 point out how here it may be seen that there is 
 probably truth on both sides of the question, 
 though subsidence is far more common in volcanic 
 phenomena than elevation. To the latter cause 
 we must certainly attribute such hills as Mounts 
 M‘Intyre, Muirhead, Leake’s Bluff, &c., as they 
 appear to have been upheaved bodily from the 
 pressure of trap underneath, during volcanic dis- 
 turbance. But all the craters have had some sub- 
 sidence in or near them, with, perhaps, the excep- 
 tion of Mount Shanck. It is needless here to repeat 
 what has been said of Mount Gambier; Lakes Leake 
 and Edward are both cases in point. But the 
 principal difficulty about the inclination at which 
 
CRATERS OF SUBSIDENCE. 297 
 
 lava and conglomerate can lie must certainly be 
 discarded, because many of the circumstances men- 
 tioned in the previous chapters show that such may 
 be deposited and rest on very steep inclinations. 
 
 In taking leave of the volcanic features of this 
 district, it would probably be well to notice the 
 error of those who imagine the occurrence of trap 
 rocks to be an indication of gold. Because gold 
 is found underneath basalt (the blue stone of dig- 
 gers), it is supposed that some connection exists 
 between the two deposits. Now, the history of 
 such formations is this :—Gold veins occur in rocks 
 of the Lower Silurian age, which cropped out on 
 the former soil of Victoria. These were decom- 
 posed by the action of water in creeks, or by wea- 
 thering. The gold thus liberated became rounded 
 by attrition into ‘nuggets,’ and deposited in the 
 alluvial soil formed of decomposed rock. After these 
 operations, and in no way connected with them, 
 the land was overflowed by lava, and many creeks 
 which were full of nuggets were thus covered over. 
 Miners are sometimes much astonished at finding 
 trees and fragments of pebble, rounded, underneath 
 the blue stone they have penetrated. The former 
 existence of creeks explains the difficulty. One of 
 the richest gold-fields, perhaps, in the world is 
 worked in the bed of an ancient creek thus covered 
 over. This is the Clunes Mine, at Creswick’s Creek, 
 not far from Ballarat. To look for gold, then, 
 because trap rock occurred, would be like searching 
 for it in tertiary limestone. 
 
298 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Gold has never yet been found in paying quan- 
 tities in South Australia, although there are doubt- 
 less numerous quartz reefs and other indications. 
 But such signs prove nothing. We might just as 
 well be disappointed because copper is not found 
 in the metamorphic rocks of Victoria as well as 
 those of South Australia. As yet, we know but 
 a few of the reasons why certain minerals are 
 always associated with certain rocks, and we must 
 not hastily conclude, because we have the latter, 
 that the former must infallibly follow. 
 
 It has been stated that there are some granite 
 rocks found in this district. They occur in the 
 bed of the Murray, and run in an east and west line 
 across the desert east of that river. They occur, 
 also, in small localities south of that line. They 
 are huge rounded rocks, of red granite, of a very 
 coarse crystalline structure. They have been mis- 
 taken for drift boulders, but they are, in fact, in- 
 trusive, and, though the Lower Crag has been per- 
 haps deposited around them, they certainly belong 
 to the tertiary period. Their line of elevation 
 runs at right angles to that of other Australian 
 mountains. 
 
299 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 CAVES. 
 
 DENUDATION AND ITS EFFECTS.—CAVES IN GENERAL.— BONES 
 IN CAVES.— CAVES MADE BY FISSURES.— HOW BONES CAME 
 INTO THEM.— PARALLEL INSTANCE IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA.— 
 COURSE OF RIVERS IN CAVES.—CAVES IN THE MOREA. — 
 THE KATAVOTHRA.— THE SWEDE’S FLAT.— OSSEOUS DEPOSITS. 
 — HOW BONES BECOME PRESERVED IN RIVERS. —- CAVES WHICH 
 HAVE BEEN DENS OF ANIMALS.—KIRKDALE CAVE.— BEACH 
 CAVES.— PAVILAND CAVE. — AUSTRALIAN CAVES WITH RE- 
 MAINS OF ABORIGINES. —- EGRESS CAVES.——-THE GUACHARO 
 CAVES. — OTHER CAVES. — CONCLUSION. 
 
 S most of the rocks described in the preced- 
 ing chapters have been of a loose friable 
 structure, and composed of limestone, it must 
 ‘naturally be expected that great portions of the 
 beds have been removed, and that consequently, 
 evidences of denudation will be found. Denudation 
 may make itself manifest In many ways: either 
 by removal of large masses of rock, so as to make 
 breaks in the strata otherwise unaccountable, or 
 by the rounding of outlines, or by leaving sharp pin- 
 nacles of the rock that has been spared (of which 
 _ kind there are so many instances at Guichen Bay), 
 or by the chasm caused by the flowing of rivers, or, 
 finally, by caves, which owe their origin to various 
 causes. 
 
300 CAVES. 
 
 The latter kind of denudation is that with which 
 we have to deal in this chapter. Caves are so com- 
 mon in this district, and so varied in their charac- 
 teristics, that some detail will be necessary to de- 
 scribe them all. I mean, however, to devote this 
 chapter to the subject of caves in general, and the 
 various theories which have been proposed for their 
 origin. Properly speaking, this should belong to 
 a work on geology rather than the description of 
 a particular district; but the interest of the sub- 
 ject will apologise for the digression, more espe- 
 cially as it will convey instruction directly eluci- 
 dating what is to follow. 
 
 Caves are found in nearly every description of 
 rock, but more particularly in two, and these from 
 entirely different causes. These are trap rock and 
 limestone, the former being generally the result of 
 violent igneous action, and the latter infiltration of 
 some kind. With the former we have not much to 
 do at present; but, as instances of the kind of cave 
 meant, Staffa may be mentioned. This is too 
 well known to need description; but the regular 
 crystalline form of the sides, and the nature of the 
 rock of which it is composed, show that the mere 
 wearing of water had nothing. to do with its origin. 
 
 The other kind of cave is that which occurs in 
 limestone, generally stratified, but in any case 
 only where the nature of the rock is such as to 
 admit of its being easily worn away by the action 
 of water. They are of the most varied kinds and 
 shapes, but admit of being divided generally into 
 
CAVES. 301 
 
 four kinds, as follows :—1. Caves which have arisen 
 from fissures in the rock, and are therefore wedge- 
 shaped crevices, widest at the opening. 2. Caves 
 which face the sea-shore, and are merely holes that 
 have been worn by the dashing of the sea on the 
 face of the cliff. 3. Caves which open to the face 
 of a cliff to give egress to water. 4. Caves whose 
 entrances are holes in the ground, opening very 
 wide underneath, and having the appearance of 
 water having entered from above. 
 
 For convenience, these will bear the names of — 
 1. Crevice caves. 2. Sea-beach caves, or dens of 
 animals. 3. Egress caves, or passages to give 
 egress to subterranean streams. 4. Ingress caves, 
 or passages caused by water flowing into the 
 holes of rocks, and disappearing under ground. 
 Caves of these four descriptions are found in nearly 
 every country where the limestone rock is of any 
 thickness. It makes no difference to what age the 
 rocks belong, as these subterranean excavations 
 are quite as numerous in the older strata, such as 
 the carboniferous limestone, as they are in the 
 modern tertiary. 
 
 As long as observations were only confined to 
 occasional instances of these phenomena, each 
 cavern, as it was explored, seemed to give rise to 
 new features, and each was thought to possess in- 
 dividual peculiarities. Now, however, that obser- 
 vations have become more numerous, and oppor- — 
 tunities have been afforded for comparing and 
 collating the facts, several general points of resem- 
 
302 BONES IN CAVES. 
 
 blance have been observed between all. These are 
 given at some length by Mr. Phillips, in his ‘ Manual 
 of Geology,’ and I shall give them here, adding 
 such particulars as I have been able to collect else- 
 where, from other works on the subject, or from 
 observation. First, 1t has been found that nearly 
 every cave possesses in some parts of its flooring, 
 either embedded in stalagmite or in the dust accu- 
 mulated therein, organic remains, either bones, 
 shells, or even fragments of human art. In most 
 cases, these remains were found to have belonged to 
 extinct species of animals; and, when this fact began 
 to be well known, and was found to hold good, 
 almost universally, it was supposed that these re- 
 mains bore a strong confirmatory testimony to the 
 universality of the Deluge. But, in time, this view 
 of the matter was abandoned. Apart from the 
 fact, that bones resulting from the Deluge ought to 
 belong to existing species, because the earth was 
 repeopled with the animals destroyed thereby, two 
 of every species destroyed having been preserved 
 in the ark, it was found that in very few instances 
 were bones found under the same condition. 
 Again, it was imagined that these places were all 
 resorts for beasts of prey, who naturally look for 
 such places of retirement, and would bring thither 
 their prey. But this theory was, again, found not 
 to have a universal application, because either the 
 bones were all of animals too small to have chosen 
 a cavern as a place of resort, or there were circum- 
 stances connected with the manner in which the 
 
BONES IN CAVES. 303 
 
 remains were embedded which precluded such a 
 theory. At length, it was decided, that though the 
 fact was universal, the manner in which the bones 
 became accumulated was different in nearly every 
 case. | : 
 
 Some of these circumstances will be explained 
 as we proceed; but itis worthy of remark here, that 
 the osseous caverns are, perhaps, the only instances 
 in science where totally different causes have com- 
 bined to produce universally similar phenomena. 
 
 Another peculiarity noticed in caves has been 
 that, ‘whatever be the character of their floor, they 
 assume, at intervals, along their length the appear- 
 ance of a great fissure in the rocks.’ Again, ‘ very 
 few of these cavities in the rocks are entirely free, 
 on their sides and roofs, from remarkable depres- 
 sions and cavities like those produced on limestone 
 by currents of water, or the slow-consuming agency 
 of the atmosphere.’ Many of them which now con- 
 vey water are not encrusted with stalagmite, as 
 the Peak Cavern, in Derbyshire. 
 
 This cave shows the effects of erosion by water so 
 strongly, as to impress most beholders with a convic- 
 tion that the whole was excavated by the running 
 stream. We will now proceed to mention the 
 different caves where the four varieties enumerated 
 above are well exemplified. 
 
 With regard to fissure caves, the deposits in 
 these are more easily understood. If we suppose 
 large rents to be made in limestone, either by up- 
 heaval, earthquakes, or other causes, and these sub- 
 
304 BONES IN CAVES. 
 
 sequently becoming connected with caves by the 
 drainage of surface water, there is no difficulty 
 in perceiving how bones may become embedded. 
 
 In the first place, animals might be easily en- 
 trapped, either by falling in by night, or during 
 a sudden flight; or the water might bring down 
 their bones from the surface drained by it during 
 its course. A good instance of this kind of cave 
 was discovered in a hole near Plymouth, which was 
 being removed for stone for the erection of the 
 breakwater. A large number of solid masses of 
 clay were laid open, entirely filling the cavities in 
 the limestone; these were connected with fissures 
 in the surface, which were also filled with the same 
 sort of clay. In this clay were found the bones of 
 many extinct animals, including those of extinct 
 deer, tigers, oxen, foxes, horses, wolves, &c. Where 
 the surface of the cliff was exposed, the caves ap- 
 peared to be, in nearly every case, connected with 
 fissures reaching to the surface, and where this 
 was not evident a connection might reasonably be 
 inferred, in consequence of the identity of the 
 deposits. 
 
 It may appear unlikely that animals would be 
 entrapped into fissures in the manner I have. de- 
 scribed; but I can mention an instance within my 
 own knowledge, which will quite bear out the 
 theory. At the limestone ridge, about twenty 
 miles east of Mount Gambier, and in the colony 
 of Victoria, there is a small hill of limestone, 
 rather more elevated than the rest. This is com- 
 
BONES IN CAVES. 305 
 
 pletely undermined with caves, which run in all 
 directions. They never go very deep, and, con- 
 sequently, have never much thickness of rock for 
 their roofs: this causes many circular holes in the 
 roof of the cave, which are perfect pitfalls, being 
 covered round with long grass, which partially 
 hides them, and having, in most cases, a clear de- 
 scent of about twenty feet to the bottom of the 
 cavern. In following the windings of one of the 
 subterranean vaults, I came once, after threading 
 through a very narrow passage, upon a chamber 
 rather more spacious than was usual here. This 
 was lighted by a round aperture in the centre of 
 the ceiling. Immediately under this there was a 
 heap of kangaroo bones, bleached, dried, and 
 heaped rather indiscriminately together. All 
 round the chamber there were bones of the same 
 kind, scattered occasionally, mingled with sheep 
 bones (a flock of sheep was kept in the neigh- 
 bourhood), and the flooring, though occasionally 
 covered with a loose dust, some few inches deep, 
 was rapidly becoming embedded in stalagmite. 
 There could be no doubt that these animals were 
 all precipitated from above, when either feeding or 
 jumping too near the surface, and in a very short 
 time this vault will have the appearance of a bone 
 cave. This will afford a good instance of how 
 animals may become entrapped by fissures. In 
 long caves, which seem to have been the course of 
 a stream, the cause of bones becoming embedded in 
 the floor is not so easily accounted for. Generally, 
 : x 
 
306 CAVES OF THE MOREA. 
 
 when the caves are those which have formerly been 
 entered into by rivers, or caves of ingress, such as 
 mentioned above, the water has ceased running 
 into them, or they could not be explored, and there- 
 fore the fact of their being former passages for a 
 stream is more or less a supposition. It is known, 
 however, that rivers do continually disappear in 
 countries containing much limestone, and that they 
 sometimes flow underground for a considerable 
 distance before again coming to the surface. Sup- 
 posing, then, that they caused all the caves that 
 are attributed to them, would they necessarily 
 carry down bones and fill the passages with them? 
 
 In answer to this, I will give the observations of 
 the gentleman connected with the French expedi- 
 tion to Greece, given in the ‘Annales des Mines,’ 
 in 1833, and extensively quoted by Sir Charles 
 Lyell, in his ‘Principles of Geology.’ It appears 
 that in the Morea there is a great deal of limestone, 
 known by its included fossils to be of the ereta- 
 ceous period. There are regular rainy seasons in 
 that part of Europe, which last during nearly four 
 months, and, at this time, the land is perfectly 
 deluged. Instead of running off by streams into 
 the sea, the water falls, in most instances, into 
 valleys, which are quite surrounded by hills. It 
 does not collect in these, however. The valleys are 
 surrounded with large fissures in the limestone, 
 called, by the Greeks, katavothra, down which the 
 water washes and disappears. 
 
 Many of the katavothra being insufficient to give 
 
CAVES OF THE MOREA. 307 
 
 passage to all the water in the rainy season, a tem- 
 porary lake is formed around the mouth of the 
 chasm, which then becomes still further obstructed 
 by pebbles, sand, and red mud, thrown down 
 through the turbid waters. The lake being thus 
 raised, its waters generally escape through other 
 openings, at higher levels, around the borders of 
 the plain constituting the bottom of the enclosed 
 basin. In some places, as at Kavaros and Tripo- 
 litza, where the principal discharge is by a gulf, in 
 the middle of the plain, nothing can be seen over 
 the opening in summer, when the lake dries up, but 
 a deposit of red mud, cracked in all directions. 
 But the katavothra is more commonly situated at 
 the foot of the surrounding escarpment of lime- 
 stone; and, in that case, there is sometimes room 
 enough to allow a person to enter in summer, and 
 even to penetrate far into the interior. Within is 
 seen a suite of chambers communicating with each 
 other by narrow passages, and M. Virlet relates 
 that in one instance he observed, near the entrance, 
 human bones embedded in recent mud, mingled 
 with the remains of plants and animals of species 
 now inhabiting the Morea. ‘It is not wonderful,’ 
 he says, ‘that the bones of man should be met 
 with in such receptacles, for, so murderous have 
 been the late wars in Greece, that skeletons are 
 often seen lying exposed on the surface of the 
 country. In summer, when no water is flowing 
 into the katavothra, its mouth, half closed up with 
 red mud, is marked by a vigorous vegetation, 
 
 x 2 
 
308 THE KATAVOTHRA. 
 
 which is cherished by the moisture of the place. 
 It is then the favourite hiding-place and den of 
 foxes and jackals; so that the same cavity serves 
 at one season of the year as the habitation of car- 
 nivorous beasts, and at another as the channel of 
 an engulphed river. 
 
 ‘Near the mouth of one chasm Mr. Babbage 
 and his companions saw: the carcase of a horse in 
 part devoured, the size of which seemed to have 
 prevented the jackals from dragging it in. The 
 marks of their teeth were observed on the bones, 
 and it was evident that the floods of the ensuing 
 winter would wash in whatsoever might remain of 
 the skeleton. It has been stated, that the waters 
 of all these torrents of the Morea are turbid where 
 they are engulphed, but when they come out again 
 they are perfectly clear and limpid, being only 
 charged with a small quantity of calcareous sand. 
 The points of efflux are usually near the sea-shores 
 of the Morea, but sometimes they are submarine; 
 and, when this is the case, the sands are seen to 
 boil up for a considerable space on the surface of 
 the sea, in calm weather, in large convex waves.’ 
 
 Readers will excuse this long extract, since it 
 bears so much on the question, more especially as 
 in this chapter I propose to do little more than 
 quote instances of caves described by others. I 
 need not dilate further upon caves which are formed 
 where rivers enter, though the question of the — 
 deposit of bones may require more consideration. 
 I would just, however, draw attention to the por- 
 
THE SWEDE’S FLAT. 309 
 
 tion of this quotation which I have marked in 
 atalics. 
 
 It will be remembered that in a former chapter 
 I described a large enclosed valley, called the 
 Swede’s Flat, in this district. Thus it was men- 
 tioned that the natural shape of the flat ought 
 to make it a lake, but that whatever water was 
 received by it ran underground, either at the sides or 
 middle, and, where it goes at the sides, cavities and 
 hollows are seen under the limestone, which crops 
 out much water-worn and honeycombed. There 
 are also hollows high up on the sides, and on the 
 islands previously described. These serve as chains 
 for the water when either of those below are stop- 
 ped, or when they cannot carry away the water as 
 quickly as it comes. The drains in the middle of 
 the flat are those where by far the greatest quantity 
 of water flows away. These are deep circular de- 
 pressions, covered in summer with caked mud, 
 cracked in every direction, and mixed with a great 
 deal of sand.* 
 
 There are many other places in this district 
 where large swamps, when overflowing, let the 
 
 * Might not the enclosed valleys of the Morea be the remains of 
 chalk atolls? This interesting question is worthy of attention. The 
 resemblance of the Swede’s Flat to the Greek valleys is very great, 
 as far as a description will enable me to judge of the latter. However, 
 I am more and more convinced of the probability of the former being 
 an upraised atoll. I was enabled, a short time since, to inspect a 
 section of sixty feet of the bottom of the flat, where a well had been 
 recently sunk. The deposits were just such as are described to be 
 peculiar to the lagoons of coral islands. The bottom strata were 
 much honeycombed, and through the crevices there was a rush of wind 
 which extinguished the lights, 
 
310 UNDERGROUND DRAINAGE 
 
 surplus water flow under the limestone, and these 
 localities, which are caves in course of formation, 
 are hollow passages, which can be followed for some 
 distance, and much honeycombed by the passage of 
 the water. I wish to direct my readers’ attention 
 to these facts, because they will assist much in ex- 
 plaining phenomena that will be mentioned here- 
 after; but I would have it, above all, remembered, 
 that sometimes, in consequence of the stoppage of 
 the drainage at low levels, the entrance to caves 
 forming passages to subterranean streams may be 
 found much above the ordinary level of the country. 
 
 And now for the osseous deposits. Is it neces- 
 sary, it may be asked, that rivers, or underground 
 streams, supposing the caves to be formed by such, 
 should always bring down bones? It must be re- 
 membered, in answering this, that other things 
 besides bones are found in caves where the deposit 
 is recent enough to have them undecomposed. 
 However, when we bear in mind that of all this 
 débris, borne down by an ordinary stream, the 
 bones of animals are the only things calculated to 
 resist the action of decomposition, it is not aston- 
 ishing that nothing else is found after a long course 
 of ages. That other substances have been carried 
 into the caverns, and subsequently decomposed, 
 there can be no doubt. There are in every case, 
 in addition to the stalagmite, deposits of fine black © 
 dust, or else, if the moisture is in excess, a finely- 
 levigated black mud, such as is, under ordinary 
 circumstances, derived from the decay of carbona- 
 
BY CAVES. 311 
 
 ceous matter. We must consider the bone stalag- 
 mite, then, not as deposited in the manner in which 
 it is found, but as mingled in the first instance with 
 the ordinary débris of a rapid stream passing over 
 a locality which was ordinarily dry land, and not 
 the bed of a stream. 
 
 In corroboration of the view that streams would 
 not, after a long period, leave any record except 
 bones, we may cite the instances of those beds of 
 former streams, revealed to the geologist by the 
 upheaval of the land. The Pampzan formation 
 is a case in point. This has been celebrated for 
 enclosing innumerable bones of immense animals 
 belonging to a former period of the earth’s existence, 
 including the Megatherium, the Megalonyx, My- 
 lodon, Macrauchenia, Toxodon, &c.. This large 
 formation, which extends over many thousands of 
 square miles, is composed of a red or brownish 
 ochreous mud, and is now proved to have been the 
 former bed or estuary of the Rio dela Plata. Now, 
 though this large river must have conveyed down 
 many other substances besides bones, these are the 
 only, or nearly the only, things preserved. 
 
 Again, the upheaval of the land in many portions 
 of the Australian continent shows, as banks of ri- 
 vers, what has formerly been the bed. These seldom 
 or never contain any drift wood or vegetable matter, 
 but bones of animals have been occasionally found 
 in them. And, indeed, a moment’s reflection shows 
 how this happens. Wood and light particles would 
 float for a long time, and be carried out to sea, 
 
312 WHY BONES ALONE ARE FOUND. 
 
 whereas animals drowned, or otherwise carried down, 
 would float for a time, and then finally sink, and be 
 buried in the mud. Now, if in the beds of rivers 
 where the drowning or carrying down of animals is 
 rather the exception than the rule, bones are found, 
 how much more so in the beds of rivers which have 
 emptied themselves into caves! For these would 
 never take their course but in times of flood, when 
 the waters invade the land, and drown many land 
 animals; and if, as I shall showin the case of Aus- 
 tralia, the most predominant bones are those of 
 animals which burrow underground, and thereby 
 the more liable to be drowned in sudden floods, 
 there will be no difficulty in accounting for the 
 osseous deposit in caverns. 
 
 In enumerating the different kinds of caves 
 at the commencement of this chapter, I spoke 
 of two other kinds, namely, beach, or those 
 which have served as dens for wild beasts, and 
 caves which serve as places for the egress. Of the 
 former, the celebrated Kirkdale Cave is a good 
 example. It was found by accident in 1821, in 
 quarrying stone in the limestone peculiar to that 
 part of Yorkshire. It was a long narrow passage, 
 twenty-four feet long, and so low as to prevent 
 a person walking upright. The floor was of sta- 
 lagmite, but underneath was a bed of mud contain- 
 ing many bones. ‘The surface of the sediment, 
 when the cave was first opened, was smooth and 
 level, except in those parts where its regularity 
 had been broken by the accumulation of stalagmite, 
 
BONES IN CAVES. 4 313 
 
 q 
 or ruffled by the dripping of water; its substance 
 was an argillaceous and slightly micaceous loam, 
 composed of such minute particles as could easily 
 be suspended in muddy water, and mixed with 
 much calcareous matter. That seems to have 
 been derived, in part, from the dripping of the roof, 
 and, in part, from comminuted bones.’ * 
 
 There was a great variety of bones of different 
 animals found in the mud we have described; but 
 from the fact that hyena teeth and bones were 
 more numerous than any other, and that the bones 
 of other animals were broken and quarried, besides 
 the great quantity of hyszena dung mixed up in the 
 mud, no difficulty was found in concluding that 
 this cave must have been a den for hyenas, and 
 that the bones were those of the tenants, mingled 
 with those of their prey, which they had dragged 
 thither to devour. 
 
 With this description of cave we have very little 
 to do in this work, as Australia, with the excep- 
 tion of, perhaps, one lion, possesses no predaceous 
 animal, unless the dingo be considered one; and 
 this does not live in dens, or, at any rate, is glad to 
 eat his prey wherever he can find it.T 
 
 * Buckland’s Religuie Diluviane. 
 
 + I will insert, however, a quotation from a letter of the Govern- 
 ment geologist of Victoria, read before the Geological Society, London, 
 June 1, 1859 :—‘ The only other interesting discovery of the survey is 
 the bone-cave at Gisborne, about twenty-five miles north of Melbourne. 
 .... In it, embedded in light, powdery, and perfectly dry soil, we 
 found great quantities of the osseous remains of birds and mammals, 
 the most remarkable being perfect skulls of the dingo, the Tasmanian 
 devil, and another carnivorous animal, which M‘Coy thinks is quite 
 anew genus. The skull is in shape somewhat similar to that of a 
 
314 PAVILAND CAVE. 
 
 We have, however, to give an instance of sea- 
 beach caves, and for this purpose cite the note of 
 Sir H. De La Beche’s ‘ Geological Observer,’ where 
 he speaks of the Paviland Cave, Glamorganshire, 
 and of the human remains found therein:—‘ The 
 cave in which these remains were discovered is one 
 of two on the coast between Oxwick Bay and the 
 Worm’s Head, part of the district known as Gower, 
 on the west of Swansea, and formed, in great part, 
 by carboniferous or mountain limestone. It is 
 known as the Goat’s Hole, and is accessible only 
 at low water, except the face of a nearly precipi- 
 tous cliff rising to the height of about 100 feet 
 above the sea. The floor at the mouth of the cave 
 is about thirty or forty feet above high-water 
 mark, so that, during heavy gales on shore, the 
 spray of the breakers dashes into it. Beneath 
 a shallow covering, Dr. Buckland discovered the 
 nearly entire left side of a female skeleton. Close 
 to that part of the thigh-bone where the pocket is 
 usually worn, he found laid together, and sur- 
 rounded by rubble, about two handfuls of small 
 shells of the Nerita littoralis, in a state of complete 
 decay, and falling to dust on the slightest pressure. 
 At another part of the skeleton, viz., in contact with 
 
 domestic cat, but not more than half the size, and there are only two 
 molars. The roof and sides of the passage were narrow, and were quite 
 smoothed and polished, evidently from the frequent passage of the 
 animals that have inhabited the cave. When discovered, all these 
 passages were so completely filled up with earthy matter that no 
 animal much larger than a rat could have obtained entrance, When 
 cleaned out, some of them were four feet high,’ 
 
PAVILAND CAVE. 315 
 
 the ribs, he found forty or fifty fragments of small 
 ivory rods,* nearly cylindrical, and varying in dia- 
 meter from a quarter to three quarters of an inch, 
 and from one to four inches in length. Their 
 external surface was smooth in a few which were 
 least decayed, but the greater number had under- 
 gone decomposition. Fragments of ivory rings 
 were also observed, supposed, when complete, to 
 have been four or five inches in diameter. 
 
 ‘Portions of elephant tusks were obtained, one 
 nearly two feet long, and Dr. Buckland inferred that 
 the rods and the rings had been made of the fossil 
 ivory, the search for which had caused marked dis- 
 turbance of the ossiferous ground, the ivory being 
 then in a sufficiently hard and rough state to be 
 worked. Charcoal and pieces of nine recent bones 
 of sheep, oxen, and pigs, apparently the remains of 
 food, showed the cave had been used by man. 
 
 ‘ The toe-bone of a wolf was shaped, and it was 
 inferred, that it had been probably employed as a 
 skewer. As regards the date when this cave may 
 have thus been worked for its ivory, and the woman 
 buried, Dr. Buckland calls attention to the remains 
 of a Roman camp on the hill immediately above the 
 cave. Amid the disturbed ossiferous ground there 
 were not only recent bones, but also the remains 
 of edible Buccinum undatum (whelk), Lattorina 
 
 * Similar rods of ivory were found by Sir Christopher Wren in sink- 
 ing for the foundations of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London. The place 
 was supposed to have been an old Roman cemetery. Underneath were 
 found sand and eocene shells (London clay) 
 
 . 
 4 
 
316 EGRESS CAVES. 
 
 littorea (periwinkle), &c.’ I have already stated 
 that this quotation was more for the sake of illus- 
 trating the kind of cave meant than for any direct 
 reference it has to Australia. It is, however, singu- 
 lar, that in all North Australia caves have been dis- 
 covered which have evidently formerly been tenanted 
 by the aborigines. The walls around are covered 
 with rude frescoes in red ochre, containing emblems 
 as curious for their great antiquity as showing 
 some remote connection with Hindoo designs. 
 
 With reference to the egress caves, or passages 
 which gave egress, whose source is not known, 
 not so much is to be said. There are none in Austra- 
 lia, nor, indeed, are there many in the whole world. 
 They are not ossiferous. The origin of the water 
 in them is not known, but several theories are ex- 
 tant on the subject. One is, that they are con- 
 nected with immense reservoirs of water, which col- 
 lect from infiltration, like artesian springs. This 
 is very probable. Most of my readers are ac- 
 quainted with Humboldt’s description of one he 
 visited in South America, near the convent of 
 Caripe. As this is a good instance, and the account 
 is replete with interest, its insertion here will be 
 excused, in a condensed form, of the account from 
 the ‘Personal Narrative’ which refers to it. 
 
 ‘The Cueva del Guacharo, as preserved in the 
 vertical profile of a rock.—The entrance is towards 
 the south, and forms an arch eighty feet broad and 
 seventy-two high. The rock which surrounds the 
 grotto is covered with gigantic trees; but this 
 
CUEVA DEL GUACHARO. 317 
 
 luxury of vegetation embellishes not only the ex- 
 ternal arch, it appears even in the vestibule of the 
 grotto. We saw with astonishment plantain-leaved 
 heliconias eighteen feet high, the maya palm-tree, 
 and arborescent arums, following the course of the 
 river, even to those subterranean places. The 
 vegetation does not disappear till about thirty or 
 forty paces from the entrance. We measured 
 - the way by means of a cord, and we went on 
 about 430 feet, without being obliged to light 
 our torches. Daylight penetrates far into this 
 region, because the grotto forms but one single 
 channel, keeping the same direction from south- 
 east to north-west. When the light began to fail, 
 we heard from afar sounds of the nocturnal birds. 
 As we advanced into the cavern, we followed the 
 banks of a small river which issues from it, and is 
 from twenty-eight to thirty feet wide. We walked 
 on the banks as far as the hills, formed of calca- 
 reous incrustations, permitted us. Where the cur- 
 rent winds among very high masses of stalactites, 
 we were often obliged to descend into its bed, which 
 is only two feet deep. We learned with surprise 
 that this rivulet is the origin of the river Caripe, 
 which, at the distance of a few leagues, is navigable 
 for canoes. The grotto preserves the same direc- 
 tion, breadth, and height for 1,458 feet. We had 
 great difficulty in persuading the Indians to ad- 
 vance as far as a spot where the soil rises abruptly 
 at an inclination of sixty degrees, where the torrent 
 forms a small subterranean cascade. We climbed 
 
318 CUEVA DEL GUACHARO. 
 
 this, not without difficulty. We saw that the 
 grotto was perceptibly contracted, retaining only 
 forty feet in height, and that it continued stretch- 
 ing to the north-east without deviating from its 
 original direction, which is parallel to the valley of 
 Caripe.’ 
 
 The illustrious traveller then goes on to consider 
 the subject of caves generally, which he treats in a 
 manner worthy of his patient acuteness; but his 
 opinions are rather behind the present state of 
 science. 
 
 Other instances might be mentioned of rivers 
 issuing from caverns, and causing the same charac- 
 teristic appearance of a straight narrow channel, 
 of nearly equal width and height, different en- 
 tirely from those which have been formed by floods, 
 by the absence of tortuous windings, wide chasms, 
 and deep fissures. 
 
 There was a river issuing from a cave, precisely 
 similar to that of Caripe, near Tehnilotepec, in the 
 western Cordilleras of Mexico; but in the night of 
 the 16th of April, 1802, the river suddenly ceased 
 flowing, bringing great ruin on the inhabitants of 
 the countries through which it formerly ran; pro- 
 bably, some subterranean disturbance connected 
 the reservoir with another outlet, or turned it into 
 a lower stratum. 
 
 We have now gone through the description of 
 caves, according to the classes into which, for con- 
 venience, | have divided them. I have not men- 
 
CONCLUSION. 319 
 
 tioned many that are probably more interesting 
 than those I have described, because I only wished, 
 in this chapter, to illustrate certain principles and 
 theories, and, accordingly, only cited those which 
 were most apt for the purpose. 
 
 I might, for instance, have described the Mam- 
 moth Caves, in Kentucky and Tennessee, which are 
 certainly the most remarkable in the world. Many 
 of them have been descended for hundreds of feet, 
 and streams of water have generally been found in 
 them. Some of them have been followed for many 
 miles; indeed, so common a feature is this of the 
 country, that they cease to attract attention. They 
 are generally like other caves, whose roofs and 
 sides of limestone are encrusted all over with 
 stalactite. There is one cave, in the Cumberland 
 mountain, of ‘such great depth that its bottom has" 
 not been reached. 
 
 The mention of this district, where the rock is 
 all: limestone, and of so loose a texture as to be 
 easily undermined with caves, reminds one of the 
 district of which I am now treating. Here the 
 limestone is loose, and covers immense tracts of 
 country, and, consequently, caves are so numerous 
 as to be scarcely a matter of comment. In their 
 description the next two chapters will be occupied, 
 and it is in order to understand the import of the 
 various appearances, that I have dealt generally 
 with the subject in this chapter. 
 
 I have shown it to be, commonly, that the theory 
 
320 CONCLUSION. 
 
 for the osseous deposits must vary in every case. 
 What views on the subject will be required for the 
 osseous breccia in the cover of this district, will be 
 the subject of the next chapter. 
 
321 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 CAVES. 
 
 CAVES IN. GENERAL.—-CAVES AT MOSQUITO PLAINS.—— FIRST 
 CAVE.—SECOND CAVE.—THIRD CAVE.—DRIED CORPSE OF A 
 NATIVE.— ROBERTSON’S PARLOUR.— CONNECTION BETWEEN IT 
 AND DEEPER CAVES. — CORALLINE LIMESTONE, — BONES, — 
 BONES OF RODENTS. — OTHER BONES.—MANNER IN WHICH THE 
 CAVES WERE FORMED.—FORMER LAKE NOW DRAINED BY A 
 
 _ CREEK. —~- EVIDENCE OF FLOODS.——-NO EVIDENCE OF THE 
 DELUGE. — CONCLUSION. 
 
 F all the natural curiosities a country can pos- 
 sess, none tend so much to render it famous 
 
 as the existence of large caves. There is such an 
 air of mystery in the idea of long subterranean 
 passages and gloomy galleries shut out from light 
 and life—so little is known of their origin, and 
 they are generally accompanied with such beautiful 
 embellishments of Nature—that one is never tired 
 of seeing them, or of hearing the description of those 
 that cannot be visited. Thus, every one who may 
 otherwise never have heard of Adelsberg, has heard 
 of the Adelsberg caves, with the renowned pure 
 white stalactite, which, hanging from the roof like 
 an immense snowy curtain, is so translucent as to 
 show torches placed on the inner side. In like 
 manner, every one has heard of the caves in the 
 
 Y 
 
322 _ CAVES IN GENERAL. 
 
 Peak of Derbyshire, where visitors are carried 
 in a boat, by a subterraneous river, along a passage 
 scarcely two feet high, before they can inspect the 
 inner portion. Persons who have never read Hum- 
 boldt’s ‘ Personal Narrative’ have at least heard of 
 the Guacharo caverns, in South America, described 
 in the last chapter, which are tenanted by thousands 
 of owls, whose screeching makes the place like a 
 den infernal. Few are, perhaps, aware of the ex- 
 istence of the caves in New South Wales, described 
 by Sir Thomas Mitchell, and fewer still know of 
 those in ‘Tasmania. 
 
 But, wherever such natural curiosities are known, 
 they do not fail to give great importance to the 
 place, making it as noted as if it possessed a burn- 
 ing volcano or a geyser spring. Iam not aware 
 that any attempt has been made to describe the 
 caves we possess in South Australia. Some occa- 
 sional tourist may have notified, in a stray news- 
 paper paragraph, the fact that such things existed; — 
 but, as far as giving an account of their rich 
 and varied beauties, as far as relating the extraor- 
 dinary natural curiosities that are to be met with 
 in them, nothing at all has been done. And yet 
 in point of magnitude, in point of splendour, and 
 in a scientific view, they do not yield in importance 
 to any of the wonderful phenomena enumerated 
 above. In this chapter I propose to give an ac- 
 count of them, which, to do them justice, must be 
 rather lengthy; for to bring the description within 
 small limits would cause many things which are of 
 
BLANCHE CAVES. 323 
 
 scientific importance to be omitted. If the narra- 
 tion is long, the presumed interest of the subject 
 must be the apology. 
 
 About twenty-five miles north of Penola, on the 
 sheep-run of Mr. Robertson, in the midst of a 
 swampy sandy country, plentifully covered with 
 stringy bark, a series of caves are found, whose 
 internal beauty is at strange variance with the 
 wildness of the scenery around. There is nothing, 
 outwardly, to show that any great subterraneous 
 excavation might be expected. The entrance to 
 them is merely a round hole, situated on the top 
 of a hill; and, were it not for the existence of cer- 
 tain temporary huts, and other unmistakable signs 
 of the former frequent visits of Bush excursionists, 
 one might be inclined to pass the place without 
 noticing anything peculiar. 
 
 On going to the edge of the hole, a small sloping 
 path is observed, which leads under a shelf of rock, 
 and, on descending this for a depth of about twenty- 
 five feet, then it is one gets the first glimpse of the 
 magnificence enshrined below. ‘The observer finds 
 himself at the entrance of a large oblong square 
 chamber, low, but perfectly lighted by an aperture 
 at the opposite end, and all around, above and 
 below, the eye is bewildered by a profusion of or- 
 naments and decoration of Nature’s own devising. 
 It is like an immense Gothic cathedral, and the 
 numbers of half-finished stalagmites, which rise 
 from the ground like kneeling or prostrate forms, 
 seem worshippers in that silent and solemn place. 
 
 y 2 
 
324 BLANCHE CAVES, 
 
 The walls are pretty equal in outline, generally 
 unbroken nearly to the floor, and then, for the most 
 part, they shelve in as far as the eye can reach, 
 leaving a wedge-shaped aperture nearly all round. 
 This seems devised by Nature to add to the embel- 
 lishment of the place; for in the space thus left, 
 droppings of limestone have formed the most fanci- 
 ful tracery, where pillars of every shape wind into 
 small groups, like garlands of flowers, or stand out 
 like the portico of a Grecian temple, the supports 
 becoming smaller and smaller till they join like a 
 mass of carved marble. 
 
 At the farther end there is an immense stalactite, 
 which appears like a support to the whole roof. 
 This shuts from the view the aperture in the roof 
 behind it, so that the light steals in with a subdued 
 radiance, which mellows and softens the aspect of 
 the whole chamber. The pillar is about ten feet 
 in diameter, and, being formed of the dripping of 
 limestone from above, in successive layers, seems 
 as though it owed its elaborate appearance to the 
 hand of Art, not the least beautiful part of it 
 being that it is tinted by almost every variety of 
 colour, one side being a delicate azure, with pas- 
 sages of blue and green and pink intermingled ; 
 and again it is snowy white, finally merging into a 
 golden yellow. It stands upon a raised platform 
 of stalagmite, which extends some way down the 
 chamber, about three feet high, at the end of which 
 is the pillar. 
 
 This platform has been a mass of small stalag- 
 
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MOSQUITO PLAINS. 325 
 
 mites, which are now joined together by succes- 
 sive droppings, that have covered them over in a 
 manner not unlike the spreading of a linen cloth. 
 At the south end (the entrance), the cave looks 
 as if prolonged behind each side of the narrow 
 opening. But this is not the case. ‘There is 
 merely the same continuance of columns, like those 
 found all round; somewhat larger, indeed, and 
 joined together so closely as to make the spaces 
 look like the pointed arches of a medizval crypt. 
 The whole length of the cavern, as near as I could 
 ascertain, is about 190 feet, the width about forty- 
 five feet, and the height twenty feet. The floor is 
 deeper towards the middle, so that the latter 
 measurement varies. Its length would be much 
 greater, and it would run into the next cave, but 
 that it is blocked up by the large stalactite I have 
 described above. | 
 
 On going round this, and observing, still on 
 every side, the stalactite pillars, the opening which 
 lets in the light to the north end is seen. There 
 was evidently no aperture here formerly, as a pile 
 of broken limestone shows the roof to have fallen 
 in; and, by the manner-in which the damp has 
 rounded the sharp fragmentary outlines, by the 
 way the heap is covered by creeping plants, it de- 
 clares itself to have happened a long time since. 
 This inlet is larger than the one at the entrance. 
 
 The second cave that now meets the view is 
 different in many particulars from the former. It 
 is smaller, and so thickly studded with stalactites 
 
326 BLANCHE CAVES, 
 
 as to render a clear glance through it impossible. 
 These are not like those of the former cavern, dif- 
 fering inasmuch as they are all very white, and 
 mostly broader at the top than at the base, giving 
 them the appearance of groined arches. Some 
 are thin, and look, from the manner in which they 
 are deposited, as if they were gracefully festooned 
 in honour of some festival; some are mere delicate 
 shafts, and every now and then some large -unfi- 
 nished stalagmite appears in the form of a veiled 
 statue, mysteriously enshrouded in heavy white 
 drapery. 
 
 When this chamber has been nearly traversed, on 
 looking back, it is surprising what a different aspect 
 it bears; one would think a dense avenue of sta- 
 tuary before some palace had been passed, so 
 solemn, so great, and yet so life-like are the curious 
 wreathed and twisted columns, with their nume- 
 rous groupings and strange varieties of form. At 
 the end of this cave (it is not half the length of the 
 first) there is another aperture open to the light, 
 caused also by the falling in of the rock, which 
 once arched it over. It is a large circular hole, 
 whose sides are precipitous, with a smaller pile of 
 broken stone in the middle, as in the one last men- 
 tioned. It was here that many years ago some 
 natives destroyed 3800 sheep, by throwing them 
 from above on the hard rock below. This was 
 about the time they were committing many out- 
 rages, including the murder of Mr. Brown. How 
 the settlers revenged themselves is shown by some- 
 
MOSQUITO PLAINS. 327 
 
 thing farther in the cave, which will be presently 
 noticed. This opening is the last through which 
 light gains admission to the vaults, and the en- 
 trance to the last cave is on one side, in a line with 
 that just quitted. 
 
 This one is so thickly studded with stalactites, 
 and these, sometimes, so very wide at the base, that 
 from the outside it seems like a carefully-arranged 
 scene, which, from the interminable variety of form, 
 or magic effect of light and shade, might easily be 
 thought intended to represent a fairy palace. On 
 proceeding a little way, the ground becomes pain- 
 fully uneven. You have to climb over boulders, 
 ~ whose summits almost reach the roof, or you have 
 to descend into what might almost be called 
 pits, the more rough and uneven because of their 
 natural ornaments. 
 
 Very soon the cavern becomes as dark as night, 
 so that no further exploration can be made without 
 candles, and, even with these, the utmost caution is 
 necessary, as there are pits, caverns, and holes in 
 all directions, some of them leading to other small 
 subterranean passages. There is one, in particular, 
 which is a great fissure, extending nearly from side 
 to side. It is very deep. The sides are smooth 
 and slippery, and, as light is thrown into its gloomy 
 depths, the sides are seen to be divided in some 
 places into columns and pillars, making even that 
 dark place elaborate with natural architecture. 
 
 Farther into the cave the roof becomes lower 
 and lower still, surmounted with the ghostly white 
 
328 BLANCHE CAVES, 
 
 stalactites, and, at last, the passage onward is so 
 small that one must stoop very low in order to 
 proceed. 
 
 It is not without a shudder that one goes 
 through this passage. Far away from the light 
 of day, this groping along a small vault makes one 
 dread to be bent down between stone walls, unable 
 to stand straight or breathe freely. The passage 
 widens, however, when the last chamber is reached. 
 There are few stalactites here, but the number of 
 boulders increases, so that to explore the place is — 
 to climb and scramble from rock to rock. At the 
 upper end there is an immense mass of stone, by 
 scaling which the cave is seen to narrow, so that 
 human beings can hardly go farther. There are, 
 however, many passages at either side of this and 
 the other chamber, some of which have been ex- 
 plored, and it would appear that they are con- 
 tinuous to an immense depth underground. This, 
 therefore, may be called the last chamber, though 
 filled to bewilderment with fissures and galleries 
 which may lead into as many more. 
 
 A painful stillness reigns in this last cavern, 
 which becomes positively unbearable, after re- 
 maining a little time. Humboldt, in his account 
 of the caves of Guacharo, complains that the noise 
 of the birds dwelling there gives an awful addition 
 to the horror of those underground vaults; but any 
 noise would be less dreary than the dead silence 
 which reigns here. Whether it is that the air is hot 
 and close, or whether the depth compresses the 
 
MOSQUITO PLAINS. 329 
 
 atmosphere beyond its usual density, I cannot say, 
 but certainly the quiet presses painfully upon the 
 sense of hearing, and the closeness gives a feeling 
 of smothering which adds to the horror of a place 
 deep in the earth and far from the light of heaven. 
 
 At the side of one of the boulders, on the right- 
 hand side in entering, in a crevice between it and 
 the wall where Nature seems to have made a na- 
 tural couch, lies, in the position of one asleep, with 
 the head resting on the hand and the other limbs 
 reclining, the dried and shrivelled corpse of a 
 native, but slightly decayed, and almost petrified 
 by the droppings of the limestone. It is known 
 to have been there for many years without de- 
 composition, though the fingers and feet became 
 annually more encrusted with stalactite. 
 
 The history of his coming there is a sad one. 
 The blacks, in addition to the destruction of the 
 sheep spoken of above, committed murder and so 
 many acts of violence that the settlers resolved to 
 be avenged. They assembled, and set out with the 
 significant motto, ‘ Let not your right hand know 
 what your left hand doeth.’ The natives resisted 
 desperately; some were shot in every part of the 
 country. One, wandering near these caves, was 
 seen, and brought to the ground by a rifle-ball. 
 Badly wounded, he managed to crawl away unob- 
 served, and, thinking that he would be sought for 
 as long as life was in him, crept down into the 
 lowest and darkest recess of the cavern, where he 
 rightly judged few would venture to follow. There 
 
330 BLANCHE CAVES, 
 
 he lay down and died. Time went on. Not a 
 tear was shed over him as he lay there uncoffined, 
 but drops of water fell upon him from the rock 
 above; and when, a long time after, his remains 
 were discovered, the limestone had encased him in 
 a stony shroud, which to this day preserves his 
 remains from decay.™ — 
 
 The limestone alone will not, however, explain 
 the absence of eremacausis. The peculiarity of 
 the atmosphere has something to do with it. I 
 noticed, near the entrance of the last cavity, the 
 body of a sheep, which had evidently fallen from 
 above while the animal was too incautiously brow- 
 -sing on the tempting foliage. It had been there 
 some time, yet the flesh seemed as if but lately 
 killed. The chemical property of the air does not 
 materially differ from that above, and no satisfac- 
 tory reason appears why the chemical constituents 
 should not, once the vital stimulus has ceased, re- 
 act upon themselves in this case as in every other. 
 The same thing, however, is observed in many 
 vaults, and probably the uniformity of temperature 
 bears a part in the phenomenon of which the re- 
 nowned kings of Cologne and the mummies of the 
 Italian cemeteries are instances. 
 
 On leaving this last and lonely chamber to re- 
 turn to the light, a narrow fissure, richly wreathed 
 with limestone, is observable on the right hand 
 
 * An enterprising showman has since stolen this body. It was once 
 recovered from his hands, but was finally carried off. The whole 
 
 history of the larceny, and the attempts of the Government to recover 
 the body, form a very amusing incident in colonial history. 
 
MOSQUITO PLAINS. 331 
 
 going out. Proceeding a little way down, a large 
 vaulted chamber is reached, so perfectly dark and 
 obscure that even torches can do but faint justice 
 to its beauty. Here, above all other portions of 
 the caves, has Nature been prodigal of the fantastic 
 ornament with which the whole place abounds. 
 There are pillars so finely formed and covered with 
 such delicate trelliswork, there are droppings of 
 lime making such scrollwork, that the eye is be- 
 wildered with the extent and variety of the adorn- 
 ment: it is like a palace of ice, with frozen cascades 
 and fountains all around. At one side, there is a 
 stalactite like a huge candle that has guttered down 
 at the side; at another, there is a group of pillars, 
 which were originally like a seriesof hour-glasses, 
 set one upon another from the roof to the ground, 
 and the parts bulging out are connected by drop- 
 pings like icicles, making them appear most elabo- 
 rately carved. In addition to this, there is above 
 and below—so that the roof glistens, and the 
 ground crackles as you walk—a multitude of small 
 stalactites, which fill the whole scene with frostings 
 that sparkle like gems in the torchlight. In one 
 of the passages leading away from this chamber 
 there is an opening, which, after being followed for 
 some distance (on all fours, for it is exceedingly 
 small), leads into another spacious chamber, full of 
 stalactites, open to the sky at one end by a wide 
 aperture. This latter cave was known for a long 
 time by the name of the Deep Cave, and was 
 thought to be quite disconnected with the ones just 
 
332 ROBERTSON’S PARLOUR. 
 
 described. Indeed, it was at one time believed to 
 be almost inaccessible, as there is a clear descent of 
 about thirty feet from the roof to the floor of the 
 cavern, but quite lately there was a communication. 
 found between the two. There is nothing peculiar 
 in this chamber making it differ much from the 
 last. Of course the festooning of stalactites is 
 as fanciful and full of beauty here as elsewhere, 
 except that they are rather less numerous, and 
 there is a little less light to view them by. At 
 the side of this cave there is another cave, probably 
 also communicating; the passage has been dis- 
 covered at the same time. This is exceedingly 
 deep, probably over sixty feet, and only a wide 
 spacious chamber. As there is no possibility of 
 descent except by a rope, and as I was informed 
 that the cave possesses little that 1s interesting, I 
 preferred to wait for its exploration until a more 
 practicable passage should be found between it and 
 its neighbours. | 
 This is the last of the subterranean beauties, and, 
 on emerging towards the opening, the fresh air and 
 more luminous aspect come gratefully upon the 
 senses. Amazed and stupified as you may be with 
 the beauties left behind, one feels, as the eyes be- 
 come dazzled by the approaching light, that the 
 greatest beauties of the earth lose half their charms 
 when shut out from the heavenly radiance of the 
 sky. | 
 I have now to allude to some organic remains 
 and other curiosities found in the caverns. On 
 one side of the first chamber of the cave just 
 
FOSSILS OF THE CAVES. 333 
 
 described there is a fine section of the coralline fos- 
 siliferous limestone of which the rock is composed. 
 Here are seen immense masses of the Cellepora 
 gambierensis, which is the predominant fossil of 
 the formation. It is standing upright, shrub-like, 
 and much branched, exactly in the position in 
 which it grew. This must have been very near the 
 main reef, or perhaps formed part of it; at any 
 rate, it has not been disturbed since its growth, 
 and must descend to a much greater depth than 
 the floor of these caves. Shells are common on 
 the rocks, especially the Pecten coarctatus, which has 
 been so often spoken of in a former chapter of this 
 work, and at a small distance nearer the entrance 
 the coral entirely disappears, and white limestone 
 is found in layers varying in thickness from one to 
 six feet. 
 
 Next among the important organic remains of the 
 cave are the bones. It has not been mentioned, in 
 treating of osseous caves, that the bones of animals 
 when found in caves, if like existing species, were 
 always much larger than any which are contem- 
 poraries with man. _ 
 
 In Germany, in Italy, and in many other places 
 wherever bones were searched for, they were found, 
 more or less abundantly, in every case, similar to 
 animals at present existing, but of a much smaller 
 size. ‘This latter point is of much importance, and 
 may be stated as having become almost a law in 
 geology, as it is applicable to almost every instance 
 known, that the animals immediately preceding 
 those at present existing on the earth were identical 
 
334 THE BONE DEPOSITS. 
 
 in every particular with the present, only very 
 much larger. 
 
 Knowing these facts, and also knowing that our 
 caverns were as ancient, according to appearance, 
 as any mentioned above, there is nothing surpris- 
 ing in finding osseous deposits in them also. Long 
 before I had visited these caves, my attention was 
 called to what was stated to be a small pile of 
 bones, which were found one day by the accidental 
 breaking of the stalagmite with which they were 
 covered over. On examining the spot indicated, 
 I found they were in the raised platform, at the 
 foot of the large stalactite, in the first cave alluded 
 to above. 
 
 This platform is about fourteen feet long by eight 
 broad, and I have no hesitation in saying that, ex- 
 cepting the thin layer of stalagmite on the top, it 
 consists nearly entirely of bones. Nor is this all. 
 During the whole length of all the caves, wherever 
 the floor is sufficiently level to enable one to per- 
 ceive it, there is a constant reappearance of the 
 broken bones, whenever the limestone pavement is 
 broken through. Howdeep the deposit goes, I do not 
 know, but in the platform just named I was able 
 to scrape away almost to the depth of two feet, and 
 found the deposit as thick as ever. | 
 
 The extraordinary manner in which they are 
 agelutinated together is also worthy of remark. 
 They are not found in any regular position, such 
 as would be imagined had their owners lived and 
 died where their remains now lay. Heads, jaw- 
 
THE BONE DEPOSITS. 335 
 
 bones, teeth, ribs, and femurs are all jumbled and 
 concreted together without reference to parts. 
 The quantity of small animals it must have taken 
 to form a deep deposit of their bones—perhaps.two | 
 feet deep, ten wide, and of indeterminate length — 
 must have been something prodigious, for they are 
 compressed into the smallest possible space, and 
 must have decomposed from exposure. How they 
 came there—a question which has puzzled all geolo- 
 gists—I will allude to by and by. We have first 
 to examine to what animals they belonged. The 
 bones which most predominate are evidently those 
 of some animal belonging to the order of Rodents. 
 The skulls, teeth, and bones of these abound, per- 
 haps in the proportion of three to one of any other 
 description, and, though numerous, it was with 
 considerable difficulty I could find one entire skull. 
 It may be described as a low flat head, with the 
 incisors of the upper jaw coming abruptly out at 
 a curve from the bony palate, the orbits large, with 
 the molars on each side pointing outwards. The 
 incisors of the lower jaw do not meet those of the 
 upper when both are 2m situ, and there is a consi- 
 derable hollow between the three molars and the 
 lower part of the incisors. There are sixteen teeth in 
 all—four incisors, and on either side of both upper 
 and lower jaw, three molars. In this case, as indeed 
 in all the Rodentia, there is a great distance between 
 the incisors and the back teeth, but, as it appeared 
 to me, greater in the skulls | am now considering. 
 
 At first, I was rather at a loss to make out the 
 
336 BONES OF RODENTIA. 
 
 exact species to which the remains formerly be- 
 longed. The size (about an inch and a quarter long, 
 
 FF 
 
 Up 
 aft i — 
 < /}) _ x > v 
 { Z S Uj oa SS Z 
 WY Yr SSS Y £O} 
 \ S Z 
 ton Vii 
 3 f oil 
 nN —=-—, 7 
 ¥ CA \ 
 // Zs. ‘| ews 
 . I! - { 
 = ‘ 
 +n Laie 
 = ann a = 
 S35 ——— 
 
 Skull of ‘Rodent, from Caves, 
 
 Lower Jaw. 
 
 Cy. 
 
 Upper Jaw. 
 
 ho 
 Teeth of Upper Teeth of Lower 
 Jaw, enlarged. Jaw, enlarged. 
 
 and three quarters of an inch wide) made me in- 
 clined to refer them to the jerboa, described by Sir 
 T. Mitchell as occurring on the Murrumbidgee; 
 but I looked in vain for the long tibia which should 
 be in the neighbourhood of the skull of such an 
 animal. Besides, the teeth were only three in num- 
 ber, and, though it is suspected that the fourth 
 tooth disappears from the adult jerboa, their struc- 
 ture was against such a conclusion. In the latter 
 animal the enamelled edge makes a sort of sinuous 
 or waved edge around the whole tooth; but in the 
 ones under consideration there were three distinct 
 septa in the enamel of the grinding surface on the 
 first tooth (the anterior and largest), and two in 
 the two others. After having referred these teeth 
 to an animal very closely allied to our domestic 
 mouse, only much larger, which I was led to do 
 
BONES OF RODENTIA. 337 
 
 after some consideration, I concluded that they 
 belonged to an extinct species, and confirmed the 
 law as to size which has just been alluded to. 
 I have since found, however, that in this I have 
 been mistaken. My attention was often called to 
 little mounds of sand in the plains, where rushes 
 grew abundantly, and these were bored on every 
 side by small burrows. For a long time I was 
 under the impression that these were caused by 
 bandicoots (Perameles), which burrow under- 
 ground for the roots. One day I caught one of 
 the little brown creatures, which I constantly saw 
 running from hillock to hillock, and into their 
 burrows. To my astonishment, I saw that the 
 teeth corresponded in all particulars with those of 
 the rodents in the cave. As the species is, to the 
 best of my belief, new, I will here describe it. It 
 is of a dark-brown colour, the fur thin and fine, 
 filled with longer hairs of a lighter colour. The 
 anterior limbs have four complete toes, which are 
 sharp and compressed. There was no rudimentary 
 thumb; the hind feet have five toes, which have also 
 sharp, compressed nails. The two external ones are 
 much shorter than the others; the muzzle is short 
 and blunt, and the teeth are more similar to the 
 true or common rat than any of the Rodentia. 
 Their dentition more nearly resembles the true 
 _ rat tribe than any of the same family ; the whole ani- 
 mal resembles the Cape otomys (whose dentition is 
 also an approach to the true rat), and doubtless will 
 be found to form a link of connection between the 
 Y 
 
338 BONES OF RODENTIA. 
 
 two species. I must further remark, that it does 
 not belong to any of the present catalogued species 
 of rodents belonging to Australia. There are 
 fourteen species peculiar to Australia, and two 
 water rats. ‘Two are peculiar to Tasmania, two 
 to Port Essington, and the rest common to the 
 southern part of the continent. As far as I am 
 aware, it is not one of these. However, its bones 
 are the predominant ones in the cave, and the 
 habits of the animal easily explain the peculiarity. 
 As it will be shown hereafter, these caves owed 
 their origin to times of flood or inundation; and 
 those animals whose habits ledthem to burrow in low 
 flat lands would be, of all others, the most likely 
 to become the first victims of such a visitation. 
 The foregoing drawings of the skull are from a cave 
 specimen. The conclusion is rather ludicrous. 
 
 ‘Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus.’ 
 
 These bones, instead of belonging to extinct 
 animals, are those of animals existing within a 
 short distance of the caves. The same may be 
 said of the bones by which these are accompanied. 
 
 The first and most common, next to those above, 
 are long jaw-bones, with four molars, three false 
 molars, one canine, and three incisors on each 
 side; the condyle a flat well-defined hinge, and the 
 coronoid process sloping back at a very obtuse 
 angle, so as not to be raised much above the plane 
 of the jaw. These features would seem to imply 
 an animal with a long, low, flat head, of predatory 
 
OTHER BONES. 339 
 
 habits, bearing great resemblance to the long-nosed 
 bandicoot (Perameles nasuta), to which, or to a 
 nearly allied species, no doubt the bones belonged. 
 These animals also burrow in low grounds. 
 
 The second are the jaws of an animal not un- 
 like the Myrmecobius, with two false molars more 
 than the native cat, and the condyle very imper- 
 fectly developed. I must mention that the angular 
 process or inflection of the side of the jaw was 
 most perfect in this instance, making it extremely 
 doubtful whether the animal was of the marsupial 
 order; yet the animal was of that order, and the 
 species is yet existing in the neighbourhood as the 
 Phascogale penicillata, or native squirrel, a pretty 
 little animal, eight inches long, with a long pencil- 
 lated black tail, and the rest of the fur a light grey, 
 exquisitely soft and delicate. This little animal is 
 most destructive and pugnacious, living in dead 
 hollow trees, and I have only seen it near low land. 
 
 To this family also belong the bones of a small 
 animal not uncommon in the stalagmite. ‘The jaw- 
 bones are about five-eighths of an inch long, and 
 distinguished by the extraordinary sharpness of 
 the needle-like protuberances on the crown of the 
 molars. The animal previously mentioned has 
 very pointed crowns to the molars, and false molar 
 teeth, but those of the latter are quite as minute 
 and sharp as those of the-bat, to which animal the 
 dentition bears a strong resemblance. I presume 
 the animal possessing them was the Phascogale 
 pygmea, a small variety of the Phascogale, which 
 
 yap 
 
340 OTHER BONES. 
 
 isnot now common. It is mostly found in the 
 more northern parts of this district, and frequents 
 trees, burrowing near their roots. 
 
 The next was an animal possessing canine teeth, 
 which bore an extraordinary disproportion to the 
 others. There were in addition, on each side, five 
 molars, one false molar, and three incisors. The 
 condyle, coronoid, and angular process much resem- 
 bled those next-mentioned animals, probably both 
 insectivorous and carnivorous, from the form of 
 the teeth. Next were the bones of an animal as 
 nearly as possible resembling our native cat (Dasy- 
 urus Maugi, or the spotted opossum of the early 
 settlers), though not identical. I could find no 
 perfect adult specimen of the lower jaw. 
 
 Both these animals belonged to the same family 
 of Dasyurus, but the first-mentioned, or smaller 
 variety, with large canine teeth, does not at present 
 exist, as far asmy knowledge extends. The latter 
 is a very common frequenter of houses in Australia, 
 being as destructive and vicious as the rat at home, 
 whose place in domestic economy it usurps in this 
 colony. In its wild state it lives under rocks and 
 stones, in fact, in any underground cavity, but it 
 does not burrow, and only takes to trees when pur- 
 sued, or at night in search of birds, which it kills 
 while roosting. Besides these bones there were 
 those of the vulpine phalanger, or common Austra- 
 lian opossum, and several others which are known 
 to be common about the immediate neighbourhood. 
 
 It is to be remarked, however, that the bones 
 
HOW EMBEDDED. 341 
 
 common are those of animals which burrow under- 
 - ground, and liable, from that cause, to be drowned 
 by any sudden advent of water; also, the bones do 
 not seem to be entirely deprived of gelatine, but they 
 have the appearance of great antiquity. They are 
 generally covered with a crust of lime, which 
 easily scales off in thin plates, leaving the bone 
 clean and perfect. 
 
 I will not now enter into a description of the 
 other bones; it would take ages to classify them 
 all, even were the difficulty less than it is, so I 
 must content myself with stating that I could find 
 no remains of a large animal, and it must have 
 taken millions of individuals to raise the deposit 
 that is formed. I may add, however, that the types 
 of all the existing animals would not be much 
 smaller. The kangaroo bones found in the Welling- 
 ton Valley caves are at least three times the size of 
 any now living; and the same may be said of the 
 opossum. ‘Those caves are, I understand, in a much 
 older deposit, and probably the same may be said 
 of the bones, though, from what I shall say in the 
 next chapter, the large kangaroo may be still exist- 
 ing. Now,as to the way these bones came to be so 
 congregated: had the mouse-bones been smaller, 
 and near some Pheenician colony, we might suppose 
 them to be relics of Pagan religious worship, for 
 these people used to sacrifice mice in caverns, and 
 make a tumulus of the bones. Such a theory 
 would hardly do here. We must premise, first, that 
 the animals did not live and die where they are 
 
342 HOW EMBEDDED. 
 
 found, for their remains are not associated with 
 what we must expect, had they lived there, neither 
 are their bones found in the state they would be 
 in under such circumstances. Besides, the depth 
 is too great, and the place too extensive, for any — 
 animal to live in as a place of shelter. 
 
 Some geologists are of opinion that most caves 
 were formerly in the position of an underground 
 current or river (not uncommon in limestone), 
 which would carry down organic remains; but. I 
 can assert almost positively that there is no visible 
 place for either the egress or ingress of water in 
 these caves, unless by the roof, or through the mean- 
 dering thread-like passages at the end. A river 
 in the sense of a continued running stream there 
 could not be, or even a creek, so that the theory 
 will not meet the present case, so far as I have as 
 yet seen. 
 
 Some, again, suppose the animals to have fallen 
 from above; but though this would account for 
 bones near the holes, it would not give a reason for a 
 deep deposit extending the whole length of the pas- 
 sage. Some others agree that the bones could only 
 have collected during an extensive inundation, 
 which would cause them to accumulate, either by 
 driving large numbers of animals into the caverns, 
 or by the restless agitation of the waters above. 
 
 With this latter theory I agree, as the most con- 
 sistent with observed facts. I have remarked before, 
 that the caverns are on rising ground (another ar- 
 gument against a river). Now, suppose an inun- 
 
RESULT OF INUNDATIONS. 343 
 
 dation gradually covering the plains below, all 
 living creatures (that were not drowned in the 
 plains, which would not, as we have seen, be the 
 largest number,) would take refuge on the hill. 
 Let the waters still rise until a multitude of all the 
 things that creep the earth are huddled on to the 
 hillocks all around. Place a cave on the top; how 
 rapidly would they take refuge therein, and as the 
 swollen waters poured slowly into their last re- 
 source, what multitudes would leave their skeletons 
 to mark the work of destruction, besides the floating 
 bodies of those drowned by the first rush of the 
 waters below, that would be carried down by the 
 current or swept in by the wayward action of the 
 fluid. This theory appears to me to be the most 
 acceptable; and let us look, for one instant, at the 
 curious corroboration afforded by the nature of the 
 country around. 
 
 The caves, as I have said, are on the summit of 
 a small hill, which is part of a low range running 
 north and south. It is separated from another 
 range on the west by a narrow flat, scarcely a quar- 
 ter of amile wide. This flat is singularly level, and 
 where there are any eminences they have a rounded 
 outline, making them look like islands on the flat. 
 To the north this flat is closed, at about six miles 
 from the caves, by a junction of the ranges. To 
 the south, at about four miles, it opens out into a 
 much wider flat, and then is closed by a junction of 
 the ranges again, with the exception of a small 
 opening, through which a rivulet or creek passes. 
 
3480 ANCIENT KATAVOTHRA. 
 
 It will therefore be seen that, were it not for this 
 opening, the whole flat would be a valley perfectly 
 enclosed, and allowing no exit for the water, which 
 would drain down from the surrounding hills. 
 This would give rise to an inland lake, whose only 
 drainage would be when the water was high enough 
 to pour into the caves. In fact, the caves would 
 be neither more nor less than the katavothra, or 
 swallow-holes, of the enclosed valleys of the Morea, 
 spoken of in the last chapter. Now, there is very 
 good evidence that the creek which at present 
 drains the flat has only been recently formed. 
 When overflowing in winter, it enters very deeply 
 into the banks, so that, in a few years, it will be 
 much wider than it is now. As its greatest width 
 is very small, there can be no question that its 
 origin is very recent. Probably, as the range is 
 rather lower here than elsewhere, its beginning 
 was an overflow, when the inland valley was rather 
 more full than usual. ‘The flat itself, even if the 
 existence of the caves were not known, would be 
 ascribed to a lake, because the level appearance of 
 the bottom and the nature of the sides are precisely 
 similar to the Swede’s Flat, already alluded to. 
 lowever much the aspect of the country has 
 altered since the occurrence of the water upon 
 this lake, the appearance has not changed to such 
 an extent as to leave the least doubt about the 
 origin of the caves, when the ground is inspected. 
 
 With regard to the nature of these inundations, 
 I do not think the country has been more liable 
 
ANCIENT KATAVOTHRA. 345 
 
 to heavy rains than it is at present. Certainly 
 a flood of water covering a flat, and converting 
 it into a lake, would be an astonishing as well as 
 a pleasing sight to the settlers here; but, if 
 drainage were imperfect, the flat would be without 
 the creek. I am sure one of our ordinary winters 
 would produce all the results that are here evident, 
 leaving the country around as little marked with 
 ravages of excessive rain as it is at present, —and 
 that is saying a great deal. I was once of opinion 
 that there were here signs of an extraordinary 
 inundation, but a more careful inspection has quite 
 dissipated this notion. Floods there have been, 
 and probably seasons of more violent rains than 
 commonly seen at present, and perhaps of such 
 violence as to be unexpected again, without some 
 great change in our at present sleeping volcanoes. 
 
 It is singular that two phenomena should be 
 accompanied with such similar results in countries 
 so far apart as Australia and the Morea, yet there 
 can be no doubt that our caves and their valleys, 
 and our swallow-holes and katavothra, are in all 
 respects identical. 
 
 The entrance to the caves at the Mosquito Plains 
 is from above, and the shape of the descent into 
 them, and the walls on each side, is exactly that of a 
 watercourse. At the first descent, the stones have 
 fallen down into a kind of slope directed towards 
 the right side of the cave, which has a deep inden- 
 tation, in consequence, just at the distance that the 
 water would impinge upon it. Again, this hollow 
 
346 BLANCHE CAVES 
 
 has a projection on the farther side, which has 
 thrown the stream to the other side of the cave, 
 ‘where there is another indentation. From this 
 the water has evidently been thrown off on to the 
 big stalactite before described, at the foot of which 
 all the bones have been deposited. It is easy to ~ 
 see that this stalactite is the only obstruction the 
 water would meet in its course, and the occurrence 
 of bones in any quantity here, and here only, is 
 thus explained. I think that there is evidence here 
 also to prove that these inundations took place many 
 times, and that long periods of rest intervened, 
 during which no water flowed at all. In the first 
 place, the caves must have existed some time before 
 stalactites were formed; and, secondly, those stalac- 
 tites which reach from the roof to the ground would 
 have been washed away, had the water been con- 
 tinually flowing. 
 
 Therefore, there must have been, first, the floods 
 which scooped out the caves; and, secondly, the 
 floods which piled up the bones at the foot of 
 the stalactites formed during a period of rest. 
 
 For the first, a great many floods of water must 
 have flowed to hollow out so large a series of 
 caverns; probably every year, or nearly every year, 
 during the summers or dry seasons of which the 
 stalactites were forming. For the second, there 
 must have been either one violent inundation, 
 so as to drown all the animals in one great cata- 
 strophe (and of this there is no evidence), or there 
 
HOLLOWED BY WATER. 347 
 
 must have been successive quantities brought down 
 by the annual flow in every winter season. 
 
 The eruption of Mounts Gambierand Shanck, and 
 the volcanoes to the southward, may have caused 
 very heavy torrents of rain and extraordinary 
 floods, as these events generally do. Indeed, this 
 must have been the cause of whatever other signs 
 we see of floods here. 
 
 It may be remarked, that there must have been 
 some sorts of holes or cracks in the limestone for 
 the water to have flowed down in the first instance. 
 But this is not necessary, for the mere infiltration 
 of water through the soft and porous limestone, 
 where it was exposed, would soon form a passage. 
 But I think we may reasonably conjecture that the 
 strata underground are full of cracks, apertures, 
 and fissures. It has already been frequently stated, 
 that the whole of the district from Mount Gambier — 
 to the Tatiara is composed of lght limestone, 
 formed of porous strata, which, though much dis- 
 integrated at deposition, would, in the course of 
 time, settle down by its own weight, or become disin- 
 tegrated by filtration. As it was all under the sea 
 at one time, and as it was slowly raised from thence, 
 each portion would be successively covered by 
 shallow water exposed to the action of coast waves. 
 This would break the corals and shells of the up- 
 permost strata into fragments at first, and after- 
 wards to an impalpable paste, which would harden 
 into a very compact rock when dry, suffering 
 
348 HOW THE LIMESTONE DISSOLVED. 
 
 entirely from the loose underlying shelly deposit. 
 In the course of time, when the rock was quite 
 raised from the sea, the most loose of the shelly 
 parts would crack and loosen into fissures, leaving 
 a space under the hard, concreted upper strata, 
 thus giving rise to caves. In the district are many 
 caves of which the hard roof never falls in to 
 reveal their extent, and which are only known to 
 exist by the hollow sound percussion of the surface 
 gives, or by the boring of a well accidentally dis- 
 playing them. In confirmation of these views as 
 to their origin, I may here state what has been for- 
 merly mentioned, that, wherever the formation 
 occurs, there are always about three feet of hard 
 schisty limestone covering it. Secondly, caves are 
 very common in the district; and, finally, I have 
 seen the same thing in operation at Guichen Bay, 
 where the loose shelly rock has been hardened by 
 the mere action of the waves into a thick deposit 
 above the proper formation, which remains loose. 
 Now as to stalactites. It was formerly stated, 
 by many eminent chemists, that these could not 
 easily be accounted for, as water would not dissolve 
 carbonate of lime, or the ordinary limestone. It 
 has, however, been since determined satisfactorily, 
 that water will hold a certain quantity of carbonic 
 acid in solution, and will then dissolve a certain 
 quantity of lime. Water falling on grassy ground 
 derives a quantity of carbonic acid from plants, and 
 this, filtering through and evaporating, would leave 
 the lime it had dissolved on the inner side as a little 
 
CONCLUSION. 349° 
 
 nodule, gradually enlarging by increasing deposition. 
 Wherever the quantity of lime was small and pure, 
 and the evaporation slow, crystallisation would take 
 place, which is the case in nearly all the stalactites 
 in these caves. I must mention that, with the excep- 
 tion of the ridge on which the caves are, there has 
 been little or no upheaval, and no higher ground 
 from which any stream might be derived for a long 
 distance. The country around is singularly level 
 and flat, destitute of anything like a large creek, 
 or even of surface-water in a dry season. Devoid of 
 rivers and hills, the aspect is far from pleasant for 
 those whose tastes are with the poet, who said :— 
 
 ‘Rura mihi et rigui placeant in vallibus amnes.’ VIRG. 
 gul p 
 
 Before concluding this description of the caves, 
 there is one point which I am anxious to dwell 
 upon. There was a time when I very tenaciously 
 held an opinion, at one time promulgated by the 
 late lamented Dr. Buckland, in his ‘ Reliquise Dilu- 
 viane,’ to the effect that the bones in caves were 
 relics of the Deluge. That opinion I believe to be 
 quite untenable. Not only did different causes 
 operate in producing similar phenomena, but also 
 there is overwhelming evidence that they were 
 formed at different times. Some, as we have seen, 
 were dens of wild animals; others, places of human 
 abode or sepulture; others, again, mere drains; 
 while some can boast that they entomb animals 
 which have long ceased to exist—‘the giants of 
 those days.’ This is by no means a general rule. 
 
350 CONCLUSION. 
 
 The fact found to prevail so extensively, and so 
 confidently appealed to, namely, that all bore marks 
 of the action of water, is a mere consequence of the 
 course of their existence;—1if water did not fre- 
 quently run in great quantities where they. are 
 found, they never would have been there at all. 
 Revelation is, however, much better without such 
 equivocal support as misinterpreted facts. It can 
 well spare this testimony, since Science has laid 
 nearly all her latest and most glorious laurels at 
 its feet. What we should never have looked for, 
 namely, the marks of an inundation which only 
 lasted a year many thousand years ago, has not 
 been found. But its very absence might be cited 
 as a corroborative fact. Let us, however, at least 
 congratulate ourselves that Geology displays as 
 much the wonders of the Creator as its sister 
 sciences, Chemistry, Mineralogy, or Botany, and 
 they bewilder us with visions of God’s immensity. 
 These silent caves, never for ages past enlivened 
 by the busy hum of life, scarcely echoing to the 
 footsteps which explore their hidden beauties, have 
 within themselves a wondrous record of this planet’s 
 changes. 
 
 Geologists have been accused of requiring too 
 much time for the operation of the mutations they 
 have helped to disclose; but look upon this architec- 
 ture—this glorious tracery of Nature—remember- 
 ing that it has been formed atom by atom, and 
 line by line; consider how long it must have taken 
 a mere drop of water to take down from above the 
 
CONCLUSION. 351 
 
 marvellous columns which adorn this palace of 
 stone, and ask, Will years, even counted by hun- 
 dreds, cover the period it includes? 
 
 Man, in his busy speculations among the stars, 
 has told of wondrous things. He has pointed out 
 orbs whose distance from us he has discovered, but 
 his numbers have an unmeaning sound, which his 
 own mind cannot reach. He has traced dim clouds 
 to universes whose existence may have finished: 
 since the radiance which now shines upon him 
 proceeded from them. All his discoveries enlarge 
 our small ideas of the immensity of Omnipotence. 
 And does not Geology do the same? Beneath the 
 soil, carpeted by various flowers which herald 
 forth the beauty of a world to come, are secrets 
 which are only known to man in part. 
 
 But these revelations, small as they are, stretch 
 far beyond his comprehension. He learns that the 
 dust he treads upon was once alive, that the rock 
 on which he takes his stand has lived and died 
 has been a thing of life, and is now a stone: and 
 this is a time which reaches so far back as only to 
 be understood by Him who was from eternity. 
 He sees that a cavity (but an atom in the world) 
 has, by the small dropping of water, created itself 
 into a palace, and then has it stood a silent witness 
 to the earth’s history, has become a cemetery of a 
 creation swept away in one of its changes. But 
 this is not all, nor even a part. It requires now a 
 laborious man to learn all which, little by little, 
 has been revealed to those who have looked into 
 
352 CONCLUSION. 
 
 the past history of creation; and man, pausing in 
 his vain endeavour to stretch his mind to the 
 capacity of that which has no bounds, is obliged 
 to rest himself from the thought of the Infinite, 
 and to confess that, whether he searches in earth, 
 or sky, or sea, he 1s everywhere met by the visions 
 of the Ilimitable. 
 
353 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 CAVES. 
 
 ' CAVES.— MOUNT BURR CAVES. — VANSITTART’S CAVE.— MIT- 
 CHELL’S CAVE.—THE DROP-DROP.—BONES OF A LARGE 
 KANGAROO. -— ELLISS CAVE.— UNDERGROUND DRAINAGE. — 
 CAVES AT LIMESTONE RIDGE.—— OTHER CAVES.— CONCLUSION. 
 
 COME now to describe the other caves in the 
 
 district of which I have undertaken to write. 
 As already repeatedly remarked, where the whole 
 district is one formation, and that a loose lime- 
 stone, these may be expected to be numerous 
 enough, and so, in fact, they are. 
 
 The first intended to be described are those of 
 Mount Burr. This hill, as my readers are aware, 
 is an immense upheaval of limestone by trap rock, 
 causing a fault similar to that of Leake’s Bluff, 
 with this difference only, that trap rock is visible 
 on the latter and not on the former. It is a hill 
 covered on all sides with the outcroppings of the 
 limestone, and, towards its base, has several little 
 escarpments. Some of them have troughs, or 
 small valleys, descending to their base from the 
 higher land beyond them, and then any drainage 
 which comes down either lies as a pond at the foot 
 of the rock, or drains underneath it. 
 
 AA 
 
354 MOUNT BURR CAVE. 
 
 One of these places where the water drains has 
 given rise toa fine series of caves. No one would 
 suspect, from the outside, that there was so exten- 
 sive a cavity within. ‘The limestone appears per- 
 forated and honeycombed, of from four or five feet 
 above the ground, but there is only one very small 
 aperture, through which a man can barely creep. 
 It was only lately that the caves were discovered 
 by a person determined to see which way the water 
 drained. On creeping through the orifice, a very 
 large chamber is discovered, with the roof not 
 more than sixteen, or, in places, at most twenty, 
 feet from the ground, but very irregular. There 
 are few or no stalactites, but the water drops 
 through in quantities quite large enough to make 
 them in a very short time, and, therefore, we may 
 conclude that the caves have not been very long in 
 existence. 
 
 There are three or four wide passages off this 
 chamber, leading to as many subterranean ones. As 
 they traverse underneath, there are several places 
 where the light comes in from above, through aper- 
 tures in the limestone. These were noticed long 
 before their connection with the caves were known, 
 and were thought to be natural wells. The whole 
 extent of the caves has not been ascertained, but 
 they have been followed for an immense distance, 
 without diminishing in width or in height. They 
 are not, in other respects, very remarkable or 
 beautiful, as they contain but few stalactites, and, 
 as far as they are yet known, no other natural 
 curiosities. It is true that their aspect is both 
 
MOUNT BURR CAVE. 355 
 
 erotesque and singular, having a very wild ap- 
 pearance by the light of the torches necessary to 
 explore them. 
 
 Where the roof has ab iBonrth they have the ap- 
 pearance of groined arches; and the fanciful man- 
 ner in which the water has worn the faces of the 
 stone is like rough tracery. What has a beautiful 
 appearance, and is, in fact, a singular phenomenon, 
 is a series of most delicate wreaths, which hang 
 down from the ceiling like clusters of long silken 
 hair. ‘These are roots of trees, which grow in the 
 limestone above, and descend through cracks and 
 crevices until they reach the floor of the cavern 
 beneath. Some few are as thick as a man’s finger, 
 and these not only descend from above, but grow 
 into the floor beneath, looking like the branches of 
 the banyan tree or iron pillars, planted to support 
 the roof. The majority, however, are thin and 
 silky, and look almost like gossamer. When one 
 takes in hand what appears to be a thick bunch, it 
 proves as light as a feather, composed of thin shreds, 
 which throw out tubers every now and then, which 
 interlace and form a compact network. There are 
 no cracks visible where they are thickest, and yet, 
 that such thin filaments could penetrate the lime- 
 stone unless there were apertures, does not appear 
 possible. This is the only cave where L observed any- 
 thing of the kind, even though the limestone ceiling 
 might be thinner, with trees on the top. All the 
 roots were brown in colour, possessing a thin, light 
 cortical substance, and being white inside. They 
 
 yoy ty 
 
356 MOUNT BURR CAVE. 
 
 were wet, and this is probably the principal source 
 of moist nourishment to the tree, the soil above 
 being exceedingly dry. Some of the bunches of 
 fibre were at least ten feet long. 
 
 Does it not seem wonderful how far the other 
 ingredients necessary for plant life must have been 
 carried to meet the sole want of water, and how 
 almost like an instinct it seems that a tree should 
 send by chance a rootlet into the cave, and, learning 
 that water could be had, kept on adding and in- 
 creasing the growth until there was a large surface 
 exposed to take advantage of the favourable posi- 
 tion? But perhaps it would be more fair to say, 
 that, as the moisture was favourable to growth, it 
 was where the plant could procure it that growth 
 would be first and best promoted. 
 
 Another peculiarity in this cave which has not 
 been met elsewhere in this district is, that it is full 
 of mud, about eight inches deep. This renders the 
 exploration of the cave a matter of great difficulty, 
 besides being disagreeable in the extreme. There 
 are pools of water here and there, but theyare, for 
 the most part, surrounded and bottomed with finely- 
 levigated mud, which covers the limestone floor. 
 This moisture seems to have arisen from a swamp, 
 which, it would appear, drains into the cave when 
 the rains are very heavy. I never saw mud in 
 any other cave, and the exception, in this case, is 
 in consequence of the extreme lowness of the aper- 
 ture, whereas, in all other caves, the opening is at 
 a height where only clear water could reach. 
 
 At the mouth of the cave there is a breccia of 
 
VANSITTART’S CAVE. 357 
 
 bones, which have been brought down by a current 
 of water and deposited at the entrance until ce- 
 mented into the limestone. It was impossible to 
 detach any of these bones without almost com- 
 pletely destroying them. They appeared large 
 bones, very like those of a kangaroo, though only 
 the ends of them were visible. There were no 
 other bones of any kind in or near the cave, with 
 the exception of a few bones of the vulpine pha- 
 langer, or opossum of the colonists, which were 
 strewed upon the mud; but this latter was of too 
 great thickness to enable one to explore with 
 facility the limestone underneath.*” 
 
 The next cavern worthy of notice is that which 
 here goes by the name of Vansittart’s Cave. It is 
 a round opening in the ground close to Mount 
 Gambier, about forty feet across, with a very long 
 sloping precipitous path leading to the bottom, 
 covered over with ferns and rank vegetation. The 
 cave is not, properly speaking, entered until the 
 pit is descended to a depth of some seventy feet ; 
 then there is a semicircular opening or arch, which 
 goes slanting under the limestone for forty feet 
 more, where water is reached. At the edge of the 
 water there is scarcely hight enough to perceive 
 anything, especially the water, which is so wonder- 
 fully clear that its interposition between the 
 observer and the floor is not for a long time per- 
 
 * From among these bones I have since obtained specimens of bones 
 of the large animals described in the Appendix. They were mixed 
 with those of existing species, and one bone was evidently the spurious 
 
 molar of the Macropus Titan (Owen), an extinct kangaroo of gigantic 
 dimensions, the skull being larger than that of an ox. 
 
358 VANSITTART’S CAVE. 
 
 ceptible, so that one runs imminent danger of 
 walking into it without knowing whence the mois- 
 ture proceeds. Up to the water’s edge the width 
 of the cave is about twenty feet, but there it sud- 
 denly narrows to a mere low passage, which is seen 
 by torch-light to go a great distance farther. The 
 water prevents its complete exploration. This 
 iatter deepens rapidly from the side, which, at the 
 distance of about twelve feet, is five-and-twenty 
 feet deep, and yet, even here, such is the clear- 
 ness of the water, that every object on the bottom 
 is clearly seen. A gentleman who visited the 
 cave a short time since was very anxious to as- 
 certain what might be the length of the aperture, 
 but, after swimming a short distance, the intense 
 cold compelled him to return, without much more 
 information than he could have gained from the 
 side. J imagine the water to belong to the general 
 water-level of the whole district, as the wells are 
 all about ninety feet deep here. At one time, how- 
 ever, it must have been lower for these passages 
 to be hollowed out, and very likely the cave was 
 occasioned by a drainage from the small hills at 
 some little distance from the mouth of the cave. 
 There were no bones here at all perceptible. 
 The entrance is surrounded with an abundance of 
 the small fern, Aspleniwm laxum, an acrogen which 
 is not found anywhere in the neighbourhood, though 
 the Pteris esculenta and Adiantum assimile abound 
 here. ‘There is also a cave at no great distance, 
 and which is so small as to demand no further 
 notice, in which the fern-tree grows. There is no 
 
MITCHELL’S CAVE. 359 
 
 other of the kind (Cibotium Billardiert) in the 
 neighbourhood, and yet one of the plants reaches 
 from the foot of the cave to the summit, and seems 
 to reach its mouth. | 
 
 We pass on now to Mitchell’s Cave, close to the 
 one we have just been describing. It is a hole very 
 much like the opening to the preceding, except 
 that the bottom is reached by a winding path, and 
 then opens into a chamber at right angles to the 
 diameter of the entrance. It has a pool of water 
 shelving under the rock, which is so deep as to give 
 it, clear as it is, a deep sea-blue tint. There is no 
 mark of any passage continuous with the cavern, 
 but the roof, where a section of it is seen, is 
 much honey-combed, and must have contained 
 many passages for water. Jividently these were all 
 covered over at one time, and the present cavern 
 was only exposed, within a comparatively recent 
 period, by the falling in of the roof. There are 
 also a few sand-pipes visible in the sections exposed, 
 of a width varying from two feet to a few inches. 
 None of these descend through the strata into the 
 cave, and they are all filled with the red ochreous 
 sand which here results from the decomposition 
 of the limestone. This cave is remarkable as having 
 been one of the sole reservoirs of water for the early 
 settlers before any wells were sunk ; now, however, 
 it is little used for the purpose, and is enclosed as 
 a Government reserve. The water is full of a 
 eypris and cyclops, the shells of which seem to 
 strew the bottom. There is also much conferva, a 
 shrimp-like brachiopod, and a minute paludina, 
 
360 THE DROP-DROP. 
 
 which seem to blacken the water, and they cover 
 a piece of wood very soon after its immersion. 
 
 At about four miles from this place there is 
 another remarkable cavern, called the Drop-Drop, 
 from the circumstance of water dripping from 
 above into it. It thus formed, at one time, a con- 
 stant supply of water to those who lived in its 
 vicinity. The place is not remarkable, except for 
 being long and narrow, and going a very great 
 depth under ground. In the neighbourhood there 
 are a very large number of this sort of caves, very 
 richly supplied with stalactite. They are being 
 dug into every day, as wells are being sunk and — 
 the ground tilled. Indeed, the resonance of all the 
 hills in the locality shows the ground to be com- 
 pletely undermined. On one occasion, a dray and 
 bullocks fell bodily into a cavity of this description, 
 their great weight having broken through the roof. 
 
 It was in one of these cavities that a bone breccia 
 was found, where, under a small aperture, about 
 two feet wide, was a mass of translucent limestone, 
 in which bones were embedded. These must have 
 fallen in from above, as there was no drainage to 
 the mouth of the cave, which was, besides, not 
 ramified, but a chamber about thirty feet deep and 
 fourteen wide. The bones were all of a species of 
 kangaroo existing in the neighbourhood, and were 
 embedded together in rather an indiscriminate man- 
 ner. ‘The specimens I saw were mostly jaw-bones. 
 
 On removing this breccia, one of much older 
 date was found beneath. From this I procured 
 one remarkable bone, probably belonging to a 
 
KANGAROO BONES. 361 
 
 species of kangaroo called the Euro, which is only 
 found 400 miles to the north of Adelaide, or 
 700 miles from where it was found. From the 
 engraving it is seen that, while the animal must 
 have had a much more massive frame than the ex- 
 
 Both specimens are rather less 
 than one-half size. 
 
 ai 
 
 (B.) Bone (Femur) of existing Kangaroo (Macropus major) 
 
 (A.) Bone (Femur) found in a Cave of Mount Gambier. 
 
362 KANGAROO BONES. 
 
 isting kangaroo of the neighbourhood, they were 
 shorter and heavier, and much less fitted for speed. 
 In fact, before I knew the qualities of the Euro, I 
 concluded that this bone was the femur of a kan- 
 garoo, evidently a much larger animal than that 
 which we have around us at present, but not pos- 
 sessed of such running’ or jumping powers. ‘The 
 length of the bone showed that the leverage could 
 not be great ; and it was after this that I heard of 
 the Euro possessing these characters. In the bone, 
 the depth of the introchanteric fossa is very re- 
 markable. The animal matter was entirely absent, 
 and the specimen extremely light for its size. 
 
 The occurrence of this bone inclines us to specu- 
 late on the causes of the banishment of the animal 
 ‘from this quarter, and its being only found at a 
 much warmer locality. It is rarely to be met with 
 anywhere, and this may be because, from its low 
 powers of running, it became a more easy prey to 
 the aborigines, or wild dogs, while its large size 
 made it a much more desirable prey. This, per- 
 haps, is the only instance where the bones found in — 
 caves, apparently larger than of any existing species, 
 have been found to have representatives still exist- 
 ing. Probably the bones found at Wellington 
 Valley, spoken of by Sir Charles Lyell in his 
 ‘Manual of Geology,’ may have been those of the 
 Euro.* But that only one bone of an animal is 
 found which possibly was very common in former 
 times in the same locality, shows how very few of 
 terrestrial faunee get embedded in strata and leave 
 
 * See Appendix. 
 
ELLIS’S CAVE. 363 
 
 records of their existence, and, therefore, how very 
 weak is negative evidence with reference to the 
 former state of the earth’s surface. We can no 
 more infer the character of animal life from the 
 absence of certain remains, than we could guess all 
 the animals of an island from a few species brought 
 home by a naturalist who made a small collection 
 during a short visit. 
 
 Now comes the account of another cave, which 
 differs most materially from all that have been 
 previously described. Close to Mr. Ellis’s station, 
 within about-five miles of Mount Gambier, there is 
 a whim erected over a small hole in the rocks. 
 Underneath this, at the depth of about seventy 
 feet, there is a long passage or cavern, through 
 which a deep stream of water flows.. It has been 
 followed in a boat, without the passage becoming 
 more narrow or the water more shallow, and very 
 likely continues till near the coast, where, as before 
 mentioned, there are several natural springs, where 
 large quantities of water boil through the lime- 
 stone rock. In spring and summer, there is a dis- 
 tinct stream or ripple visible on the surface, as 
 seen from the top of the well. Doubtless this is 
 one of the many passages through which the sur- 
 face-water drains from this district. It had long 
 been a subject of speculation how the water drained 
 from the southern part of this country. About 
 that of the northern part there was but little 
 difficulty. The creek which drains the flat near 
 the caves, as well as some other drainage, goes into 
 a large swamp, on the Mosquito Plains, known as 
 
364 THE DRAINAGE. 
 
 the Mosquito Swamp. This, when full, drains into 
 the Salt Creek, in a north-westerly direction, and 
 this creek into the Coorong, and thence into the 
 Murray. But accounting for the southern drainage 
 is not so easy, and the only way of explaining for 
 the disappearance of the excess of water is to sup- 
 pose that it drained under ground. This was cor- 
 roborated by several facts. In many of the wells 
 in this district a distinct ripple is at one time obsery- 
 able on their surface, and floating objects placed 
 on one side are rapidly borne to the other. I have 
 even heard persons say, who resided where the 
 depth of the water-level is not great and the lime- 
 stone rock cropping out, that they could distinctly 
 hear a sound underneath them like the rolling of 
 water. There is a swamp, near Mount Graham, at 
 the head of the Reedy Creek, whose sides are sur- 
 rounded, here and there, with out-cropping lime- 
 stone rock. When the swamp overflows, the water 
 drains under these rocks, which are much honey- 
 combed at these places, though there is no appear- 
 ance of caves. It can be heard rumbling away at: 
 a distance. | 
 
 This cave, then, at Mr. Ellis’s, is probably one of 
 the channels of drainage. Doubtless it is supplied 
 by many small streams which merge to this point, 
 and its continued action has hollowed out the 
 passage where it runs. Its course is about south- 
 east, and either it comes to the surface in one of the 
 numerous fresh-water springs which abound on the 
 coast, or else it comes up under the sea, like the 
 water resulting from the katavothra, in Greece. 
 
MUNBANNAR CAVE. 365 
 
 Very likely, in the course of time, other passages 
 like this will be found, and some of those empty 
 galleries, which are now so frequently dug into at 
 a small depth from the surface, are beds of streams, 
 which the upheaval of the land has deprived of their 
 office. Should this upheaval continue, the passage 
 we are now treating of will eventually become dry. 
 
 There is another very remarkable cave, about 
 three miles from Mount Shanck. It is full of 
 water, and soundings made from the side with 
 sixty feet of line found no bottom. It would be 
 interesting to know the nature of the bottom, as 
 probably an approximate guess of the thickness of 
 the limestone strata might then be arrived at, for 
 there is some considerable distance from the en- 
 trance of the cave to the water’s edge. 
 
 Next in interest to this is a series of caves 
 at the Limestone Ridge Station, a little over the 
 boundary near the Victorian township of Mun- 
 bannar.* This locality is full of caves, most of 
 them leading into one another by tortuous passages 
 ‘made by beautiful stalactites. The description of one 
 cave, however, is so very like another, that I fear I 
 should grow tedious were I to enlarge much upon 
 their varieties. It will be sufficient, therefore, to 
 say, that the locality possesses about twenty, within 
 
 * This is the native name of the place, and, like most native names, 
 is rather euphonious. It is a pity that so few have been preserved. As 
 a sample of their musical sound, we might cite afew which would be 
 infinitely preferable to transplanted British names, such as Liverpool, 
 Newcastle, &c., which will, in time, produce endless geographical . 
 confusion. Caramedulla, Aldinga, Yankallilla, Lillimer, Kaniver, 
 Pareene, &c., are infinitely preferable, and such names as these are not 
 the best specimens. 
 
366 CONCLUSION. 
 
 a short distance of each other.* There are none 
 deeper than about twenty feet, none very wide, 
 and they all seem to be connected with each other 
 by winding passages. It is one of these which 
 contains a chamber only open to the sky by a 
 small aperture, and this nearly perfectly concealed. 
 Underneath is a heap of bones—a melancholy 
 monument to those unfortunate kangaroos who, 
 prior to leaping, did not take the precaution of 
 looking. The chamber around is also covered with 
 bones, as mentioned in a previous chapter. 
 
 There are also many other caves, which are 
 hardly worth a minute description, now that the 
 leading features of the most important have been 
 described. There is, for instance, a cave at Mr. 
 Meredith’s station which is a mere vault, with 
 tumbled boulders on the floor, and many narrow 
 passages, nicely decorated with stalactite ; one at 
 Mr. Johnstone’s station (Mount Muirhead), which 
 is a very plain cavity, with two entrances ; one 
 at Mr. Ellis’s, which is entered by a very rapid 
 descent, leading into a lofty vault. There are, 
 besides, a great many more, but far too numerous 
 to particularise here. The three last are on higher 
 ground, and therefore connected with sudden. flows 
 of water. None of them are near creeks, but pro- 
 bably may have been hollowed out by the floods 
 which followed the eruptions in the southern part 
 of the district. 
 
 * One is such a famous resort for bats, that it is called the Bat 
 Cave in consequence. They frequently extinguish the lights of 
 explorers, and in their screechings and fluttering remind one of 
 Humboldt’s Guacharos. 
 
367 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
 
 Y observations on this district are, for the 
 present, brought to a close. They form a 
 sketch, and a very imperfect one, of what has been 
 observed in this part of the world, which, however 
 remote, does not seem to have come to its present 
 state of things by a very different process from 
 what has happened elsewhere. Much will remain 
 to be done by future observers, either by making 
 new observations and collecting new facts, or by 
 extending the application of those already observed. 
 There may be some slight utility in what has been 
 sketched in the preceding pages. Like the ‘ Natu- 
 ral History of Selborne,’ it has been the occupation 
 of many a passing hour inthe Bush, where amuse- 
 ments are otherwise few; and, though it may 
 appear to go unnecessarily into detail, it may, like 
 the same work, be made the groundwork of larger 
 and more general conclusions. Everyone has it 
 in his power to contribute, in some degree, to the 
 world’s stock of knowledge. If this were acted 
 upon, the different sciences would soon assume 
 other aspects; and I cannot think that the small 
 details which are food to a speculative mind are 
 ever dry to those who seek for information. 
 
368 SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 The conclusions to be drawn from what has 
 been stated in the preceding pages, though redu- 
 cible to small compass for actual results, are not 
 uninteresting, and may lead to something more 
 important. They may be described as follows :— 
 
 I. There has been in Australia an immense area 
 of subsidence during the Pleiocene period, at a 
 time when Rome, parts of Italy, Vienna, and parts 
 of Austria, Piedmont, and Asia Minor were under 
 the sea. 
 
 II. This subsidence was accompanied by a coral 
 formation, very similar to the subsiding area of 
 the Pacific at the present time, and, though all the 
 appearances are those of a reef of true zoophytic 
 corals, the predominant fossil is a massive Celle- 
 pora, while true corals are rare. 
 
 III. This gives rise to the suspicion that Bryo- 
 zoa may build reefs and atolls as well as true 
 corals. | 
 
 IV. That the subsidence ceased, and probably 
 about that time volcanic disturbance commenced, 
 and gave rise to submarine craters. 
 
 V. That, after the cooling of the lava from 
 these submarine craters, a deposit of small frag- 
 ments of shells was thrown down from an.ocean 
 current. 
 
 VI. That this became hardened into stone, and 
 was then upheaved from the sea, during which 
 process large portions of it became washed away. 
 
 VII. That the latter part of the upheaval was 
 separated by a long lapse of time from the sub- 
 
SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS. 369 
 
 sidence, because the latter strata show some dif- 
 ference in their fauna. . 
 
 VIII. That while upheaval was going on, until 
 very recently, extensive volcanic disturbance took 
 place, giving rise to craters which are all now 
 extinct. 
 
 IX. That the upheaval coralline rock, when de- 
 composed, has given rise to a very indifferent sort 
 of soil, of a sandy character, which causes large 
 tracts of arid useless country in this part of Aus- 
 tralia. 
 
 X. That the same rock, being of a loose texture, - 
 easily allowed water to percolate through, forming 
 caves and underground passagés, besides honey- 
 combing the ground in all directions. 
 
 XI. That, while these operations proceeded, the 
 animal life was of a slightly different character 
 from what is found in the same locality now, 
 though, probably, the land animals were not speci- 
 fically. different from individuals in other parts of 
 the Australian continent. 
 
 These numerous changes seem to have taken 
 place without any very vast convulsion of nature, 
 or phenomena different from what happen in the 
 world now. It has been the custom, lately, to say 
 this of all the operations of Geology. “No one, 
 however, who has studied the question, will deny 
 that there are peculiar characters in different geo- 
 logical epochs which indicate something very 
 diverse from the character of the earth’s surface 
 
 BB 
 
370 SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 now. ‘Thus, there is the age of the Silurian slates, 
 enormous masses of finely-levigated mud, derived 
 from whence we know not, and very sparingly 
 supplied with animal remains: the carboniferous 
 era, with the enormous swamps of fern vegetation ; 
 the Wealden, with its gigantic reptiles; the chalk, 
 with its corals and corallines. And so we may say of 
 our crag deposits. They give evidence of a pecu- 
 liar state of things, and seem in every case to have 
 been followed by the same results. Geology is 
 like history —its events repeat themselves, but not 
 the same events, and each period has a character 
 which seems to have affected the whole earth for 
 the time being. 
 
 But even these conclusions must be modkaed 
 by remembering how many of them rest on nega- 
 tive evidence. The very circumstances under 
 which certain deposits are found may, in securing 
 their own preservation, exclude any but a certain 
 class of organic remains. ‘Thus the coal deposits 
 do not warrant us in concluding that there were 
 no other plants, but rather, where these grew in 
 such abundance, the growth was owing to circum- 
 stances which excluded others. Or again, the 
 reptiles which are found in the Wealden mud (the 
 estuary of a former river) may have sought food 
 in such a place, and thus be nearly the only animal 
 embedded. But with every limitation, however, 
 the general character of the fauna or flora, of any 
 period, is always very clearly marked. 
 
SUMMARY OF CONCLUSIONS. 371 
 
 All these things show that Geology has some 
 conclusions as certainly established as to enable 
 her to avoid the errors of hasty generalisation. 
 As a science which requires so much from other 
 branches of knowledge, it can ill afford to lose 
 itself in mazy speculations while so much remains 
 to be done. Little by little the edifice is building, 
 and probably small contributions, such as these 
 pages, may be offered without presumption. - 
 
 It may seem strange that so much food for 
 speculation is to be found in the earth beneath 
 our feet. It leads to much knowledge. Let 
 us not be presumptuous, however. How small it 
 is In comparison with the vast amount still un- 
 known, and yet within reach!—how small by the 
 side of the vast sea of the unknown materials for 
 human knowledge, and how immeasurably insigni- 
 ficant compared with that illimitable knowledge 
 which all eternity will not enable us to understand! 
 Well may I conclude with the beautiful words of 
 an eminent philosopher :— 
 
 ‘Si quid profecerimus, non alia sane ratio nobis 
 viam aperuit quam vera et legitima spiritus hu- 
 mani humiliatio. Quamobrem. . .ad Deum Patrem, 
 Deum Filium, Deum Spiritum, preces fundimus 
 humillimas et ardentissimas.. . ne humana divinis 
 officiant; ... sed potius ut ab intellectu puro a 
 phantasiis et vanitate repurgato et divinis ora- 
 culis nihilominus subdito et prorsus dedititio, fidei 
 dentur que fidei sunt; postremo, ut scientize ve- 
 
 iE 2 
 
372 CONCLUSION. 
 
 neno a serpente infuso quo animus humanus 
 tumet et inflatur deposito, nec altum sapiamus 
 nec ultra sobrium, sed veritatem in charitate 
 colamus.’ * 
 
 * Bacon, Instauratio Magna. 
 
373 
 
 APPENDIXKS, 
 
 APPENDIX No. I. 
 CAVES AT WELLINGTON VALLEY, NEW SOUTH WALES. 
 
 HE following description of the above caves, by Sir 
 Thomas Mitchell, is added to illustrate what has been 
 said in this work on the subject of caves in general :— 
 
 ‘We first descended the fissure at the mouth of the 
 large cave, and then clambered over large rocks until, at 
 125 feet from the entrance, we found these inequalities to 
 be covered by a deep bed of dry reddish dust, forming an 
 even floor. This red earth lay also in heaps under lateral 
 crevices, through which it seemed to have been washed 
 down from above. On digging to a considerable depth at 
 this point, we found a few fragments of bone, apparently of 
 the kangaroo. At 180 feet from the mouth is the largest 
 part of the cavern, the breadth being twenty-five feet, and 
 the height about fifty feet. The floor consisted of the same 
 reddish earth, but a thick stalagmitic crust extended, for 
 a short distance, from a gigantic stalactite at the farther 
 end of the cavern. On again digging several feet deep 
 into the red earth here, we met with no lower layer of sta- 
 lagmite, nor any animal remains. 
 
 ‘On a corner of the floor, behind the stalactite, and 
 nearly under a vertical fissure, we found a heap of dry 
 white dust, into which one of the party sank to the waist. 
 
 ‘ Passing through an opening to the left of the stalactite, 
 we came upon an abrupt descent into a lower cavern. 
 Having reached the latter, with some difficulty, we found 
 
374 APPENDIX I. 
 
 that its floor was about twenty feet below that of the 
 cavern above. It was equally level, and covered to a 
 great but unascertained depth with the same dry red 
 earth, which had been worn down about five feet, in a 
 hollow or rut. 
 
 ‘ A considerable portion of the farthest part of the floor 
 was occupied with white dust or ashes, similar to that 
 found in the corner of the upper floor. 
 
 ‘This lower cavern terminated in a nearly vertical fis- 
 sure, which not only ascended towards the external sur- 
 face, but descended to an unascertained depth beneath the 
 floor. At about thirty feet below the lowest part of the — 
 cavern, it was found to contain water, the surface of which 
 I ascertained was nearly on a level with that of the river 
 Bell. Having descended by a rope, I found that the water 
 was very transparent, but unfit to drink, having a dis- 
 agreeable brackish flavour. ; 
 
 ‘This lower cavern is much contracted by stalactites 
 and stalagmites. 
 
 ‘ After having broken through some hollow-sounding 
 portions, we entered two small lateral caverns, and in one 
 of these, after cutting through about eight inches of sta- 
 lagmitic floor, we discovered the same reddish earth. We 
 dug into this deposit also, but discovered no pebbles or 
 organic fragments, but, at the depth of two-and-a-half feet, 
 met with another stalagmitic layer, which was not pene- 
 trated. ‘This fine red earth or dust seemed to be a sedi- 
 ment that was deposited from water which stood in the 
 caves, about forty feet below the exterior surface; for the 
 earth is found exactly at that height, both towards the 
 entrance of the first cavern and in the lateral caverns, 
 
 ‘ That this cave had been enlarged by the partial sinking 
 of the floor is not improbable, as broken stalagmitic 
 columns and pillars, like broken shafts, and once probably 
 in contact with the roof, are still apparent. 
 
 ‘Eighty feet to the westward of this cave is the mouth 
 of another of a different description. Here the surface 
 consists of a breccia, full of fragments of bones; and a 
 
APPENDIX I. 3 375 
 
 similar compound, confusedly mixed with large blocks of 
 limestone, forms the sides of the cavity. This cave pre- 
 sents, in all its features, a striking contrast to that already 
 described. 
 
 ‘Its entrance is a sort of pit, having a wide orifice, 
 nearly vertical, and its recesses are accessible only by 
 means of ladders and ropes. 
 
 ‘Instead of walls and a roof of solid limestone rock, 
 we found shattered masses, apparently held together by 
 breccia, also of a reddish colour, and full of fragments of 
 bones. The opening in the surface appears to have been 
 formed by the subsidence of these rocks, at the time when 
 they were hurled down, mixed with breccia, into the posi- 
 tion which they still retain. Bones were but slightly 
 attached to the surface of this cement, as if it had never 
 been in a very soft state, and this we have reason to infer, 
 also, from its being the only substance supporting several 
 large rocks, and, at the same time, keeping them asunder. 
 On the other hand, we find portions of even very small 
 bones, and also small fragments of the limestone, dispersed 
 through this cementing substance or breccia. 
 
 ‘ The pit had been first entered, only a short time before 
 I examined it, by Mr. Rankin, to whose assistance in 
 these researches I am much indebted. He went down 
 by means of a rope to one Janding-place, and then, fixing 
 the rope to what seemed a projecting portion of rock, he 
 let himself down to another stage, where he discovered, on 
 the fragment giving way, that the rope had been fastened 
 to a very large bone, and thus these fossils were discovered. 
 The large bone projected from the upper part of the 
 breccia, the only substance which supported as well as 
 separated several large blocks, and it was covered with a 
 large tufaceous incrustation resembling mortar. No other 
 bone of so great dimensions has since been discovered 
 within the breccia. 
 
 ‘From the second landing-place we descended through 
 a narrow passage, between the solid rock on one side and 
 huge fragments, chiefly supported by breccia, on the other, 
 
376 APPENDIX I. 
 
 the roof being also formed of the latter, and the floor of 
 loose earth and stones. We then reached a small cavern, 
 ending in several fissures, choked up with the breccia. 
 One of these crevices terminated in an oven-shaped open- 
 ing in the solid rock, and was completely filled, in the 
 lower part, with soft red earth, which formed also the floor 
 in front of it, and resembled that in the large cavern, 
 already described. 
 
 ‘ Osseous breccia filled the upper part of this small recess, 
 and portions of it adhered to the sides and roof adjoin- 
 ing, as if this substance had formerly filled the whole 
 cavity. At about three feet from the floor, the breccia 
 in this cavity was separated from the loose earth below 
 by three layers of stalagmitic concretion, each about two 
 inches thick and three apart; they appeared to be only 
 the remains of layers, once of greater extension, as frag- 
 ments of stalagmite adhered to the sides of the cavity. 
 The spaces between what remained of these layers were 
 most thickly encrusted with tufaceous matter; those in 
 the upper surfaces, on the contrary, were very white, and 
 free from the red ferruginous ochre which filled the 
 cavities of those in the breccia, although they contained 
 minute transparent crystals of carbonate of lime. 
 
 ‘On digging into the soft red earth, forming the floor of 
 this recess, some fragments of bone, apparently heavier 
 than those of the breccia, were found, and one portion 
 seemed to have been gnawed by a small animal. 
 
 ‘We obtained also in this earth the last phalange of the 
 greatest toe of a kangaroo,and a small water-worn pebble of 
 quartz. By creeping about fifteen feet under a solid mass 
 of solid rock —which left an opening less than a foot-and- 
 a-half above the floor, we reached a recess about fifteen feet 
 high and twelve feet wide. The floor consisted of dry red 
 bari and, on digging some feet down, we found frag- 
 ments of bones, a very large kangaroo tooth, a large tooth 
 of an unknown animal, mi one resembling some pi, 
 ments of teeth found in the breccia. 
 
 ‘We next examined a third cave, about 100 yards to 
 
APPENDIX I. 377 
 
 the westward of the last described. The entrance, like 
 that of the first, was tolerably easy, but the descent over 
 the limestone rocks was steeper, and very moist and slimy ; 
 our progress downwards was terminated by water, which 
 probably communicated with the river Bell, as its level 
 was much lower when the cave was first visited, during a 
 dry season. I found very pure iron ochre in some of the 
 fissures of this cavern, but not a fragment of bone. 
 
 ‘ Perceiving that the breccia where it occurred extended 
 to the surface, I directed a pit to be dug on the exterior, 
 about twenty feet from the mouth of the cave, and at a part 
 where no rocks projected. We found that the hill there 
 consisted of breccia only, and was harder and more com- 
 pact than that in the cave, and abounded likewise in 
 - organic remains. 
 
 ‘Finally, I found on the summit of the same hill some 
 weathered blocks of breccia, from which bones protruded, 
 and a large and remarkable specimen. 
 
 ‘ Other caverns containing breccia of the same descrip- 
 tion occur in various parts within a circuit of fifty miles, 
 and they may probably be found throughout the limestone 
 country not yet examined. 
 
 ‘On the north bank of the M‘Quarrie, eight miles east 
 from the Wellington Caves, and at Buree, about fifty miles 
 to the southward of them, I found this breccia at consider- 
 able depths, having been guided to it by certain peculiar 
 appearances of subsidence and disruption, and by yawning 
 holes in the surface, which previous experience had taught 
 me to consider as indications of its existence. 
 
 ‘On entering one of these fissures, from the bed of the 
 little stream near Buree, and following to a considerable 
 distance the subterraneous channel of a rivulet, we found 
 a red breccia, containing bones as abundantly as that of 
 Wellington Valley. It occurred, also, amidst masses of 
 broken rocks, between which we climbed until we saw 
 daylight above; and, being finally drawn out with ropes, 
 we emerged, near the top of a hill, from a hole very 
 similar in appearance to the mouth of the cave at Wel- 
 
378 APPENDIX I. 
 
 lington, which it also resembled in having breccia, both in 
 the sides of the orifice and in the surface around it. 
 
 ‘ At Molong, thirty-six miles east of Wellington Valley, 
 I found some concreted matter within a small cavity of 
 limestone rock on the surface, and, when broken, it proved 
 also to be breccia containing fragments of bone. 
 
 ‘It was very difficult to obtain any perfect specimens of 
 the remains contained in the breccia; the smallest of the 
 various portions brought to England have, nevertheless, 
 been carefully examined by Professor Owen, at the 
 Hunterian Museum, and I have received from that distin- 
 guished anatomist the accompanying letter, containing 
 the results of those researches and highly important 
 determinations, by which he has established several points 
 of the greatest interest, as connected with the natural 
 history of the Australian continent :— 
 
 “ Royal College of Surgeons, 
 May 8th, 1838. 
 s¢ Dear Sir, 
 
 “| have examined, according to your request, 
 the fossil remains which you discovered in Wellington 
 Valley, Australia, and which are now deposited in the 
 Museum of the Geological Society ; they belong to the 
 following genera :— 
 
 “< Macropus Shaw. 
 
 * Sp. 1. Macropus Athos (Owen).—This must have been 
 at least one-third larger than Macropus major, the largest 
 known existing species: it is chiefly remarkable for the 
 great size of its permanent spurious molar, in which 
 respect it approaches the subdivision of Sparo’s genus, 
 called Hypsiprymnus by LIlliger. The remains of this 
 species consist of a fragment of the right ramus of the 
 lower jaw. : 
 
 “ Sp. 2, Macropus Titan (O.).—I give this name to an 
 extinct species as large as the preceding, but differing 
 chiefly in the smaller size of the permanent spurious molar, 
 which, in this respect, more nearly corresponds with the 
 
APPENDIX I. 379 
 
 existing Macr. major. ‘The remains of this species consist 
 of a fragment of the right ramus of the lower jaw. 
 
 ‘* In both the above specimens the permanent false molar 
 tooth is concealed in its alveolus, and was discovered by 
 removing part of the substance of the jaw, indicating the 
 nonage of the individuals. 
 
 ** A portion of cranium with the molar series of teeth 
 of both sides. This specimen I believe to belong to Ma- 
 cropus Titan. 
 
 «* The permanent false molar, which is also concealed in 
 this upper jaw, is larger than that of the lower jaw of 
 Macr. Titan, but I have observed a similar discrepancy in 
 size in the same teeth of an existing species of Macropus. 
 
 ** To one or other of the two preceding gigantic species 
 of kangaroo must be referred — 
 
 TI. (a) Crown of right inferior incisor. 
 
 « TI. (6) Lower extremity of right femur. 
 
 «TI. (c) Lower extremity of right femur, with the epe- 
 physis separated, showing its correspondence in age with 
 the animals to which the fossil jaws belonged. 
 
 TI. (d) Fifth lumbar vertebra. 
 
 “JJ.(e) Tenth or eleventh caudal vertebra. The propor- 
 tion of this bone indicates that these kangaroos had a rela- 
 tively stouter and perhaps shorter tail than the existing 
 species. 
 
 ** Macropus sp. indeterm.—Agrees in size with Macro- 
 pus major, but there is a difference in the form of the 
 sacrum, the second vertebra of which is more compressed. 
 To this species, which cannot be determined till thé teeth 
 be found, I refer the specimens marked 
 
 “TI Sacrum. III. (a) Proximal end of left femur. 
 III. (6) Proximal end of left tibia, in which the anterior 
 spine sinks more gradually into the shaft than in Macr. 
 major. As this is the only species with the skeleton 
 of which I have been enabled to compare the preceding 
 fragments, I am not able to pronounce as to their specific 
 distinctness from other existing species of equal size with 
 the Macropus major. 
 
380 APPENDIX I. 
 
 ‘§ Macropus sp. indeterm.— From want of skeletons of 
 existing species of kangaroo, I must leave doubtful the 
 specific determination of a species smaller than Macropus 
 major, represented by the left ramus of the lower jaw, in 
 which the permanent false molar is in place together with 
 four true molars, and which would therefore be a species 
 of Halmaturus of Fred. Cuvier. 
 
 “ Macropus (5).— Part of the left ramus of the lower 
 jaw, with two grinders in place, and a third which has not 
 quite cut through the jaw. 
 
 “© V. (a) Sixth and seventh grinders, according to the 
 order of their developement, right side, upper jaw of a 
 kangaroo not quite so large as Macropus major. 
 
 ** Several other bones and portions of bone are referable 
 to the genus Macropus, but they do not afford information 
 of sufficient interest or importance to be specially noticed. 
 
 “ Genus HyPpsiPpRYMNUS. 
 
 “ Hypsiprymnus sp. indeterm.— A. portion of upper 
 jaw and palate, with the deciduous false molar and four 
 true molars in place on each side; the fifth or posterior 
 molar is concealed in the alveolus, as also the crown of the 
 permanent false molar. 
 
 « Hypsiprymnus.—Part of the right ramus of the lower 
 jaw, exhibiting a corresponding stage of dentition. 
 
 “‘ Obs. This species is rather larger than any of the three 
 species with the crania of which I have had the oppor- 
 tunity-of comparing them: there is no evidence that it 
 agrees with any existing species. 
 
 “ Genus PHALANGESTA. 
 
 “No. 7. Cranium coated with stalactite. 
 
 “No. 7 (a). Partof right ramus, with spurious and 
 second molar. 
 
 “No. 7 (6). Right ramus, lower jaw. 
 
 “ Obs. The two latter specimens disagree with the 
 Phal. vulpina, in having the spurious molar of relatively 
 smaller size,and the second molar narrower ; the symphysis 
 
APPENDIX I. 381 
 
 of the lower jaw is also one line deeper in the fossil. 
 As the two latter specimens agree in size with the cranium, 
 they probably are all parts of the same species, of which 
 there is no proof that it corresponds with any existing 
 species. 7 
 
 ** But a comparison of the fossils with the bones of these 
 species (which are much wanted in our osteological col- 
 lection) is obviously necessary to establish the important 
 fact of the specific difference or otherwise of the extinct 
 phalanger. 
 
 «Genus PHASCOLOMYS. - 
 
 “Sp. Phase. Mitchellii.— Mutilated cranium. 
 
 “ No. 8 (a). Part of lower jaw belonging to the above. 
 
 * No. 8 (0). Right series of molar teeth in situ. 
 
 * No. 8 (c). Right ramus of the lower jaw. 
 
 ** Obs. These remains come nearer to the existing spe- 
 cies than do those of any of the preceding genera; but, 
 after a minute comparison, I find that there is a slight 
 difference in the form of the grinders, which, in the fossil, 
 have the antero-posterior diameter greater in proportion 
 than the transverse; the first grinder is also relatively 
 larger and of a more prismatic form; the upper incisors 
 are less compressed and more prismatic. This difference 
 is so well marked, that, once appreciated, any one might 
 recognise the fossil by an incisor alone. There isa similar 
 difference in the shape of the lower incisor. The fossil is 
 also a little larger than the largest wombat cranium in the 
 Hunterian collection. From these differences I feel no 
 hesitation in considering the species to which these fossils 
 belong as distinct, and propose to call it Phascolomys 
 Mitchellir. 
 
 “ Genus D1IPROTODON. 
 
 “‘T apply this name to the genus of Mammalia repre- 
 sented by the anterior extremity of the right ramus 
 of the lower jaw, with a single large procumbent incisor. 
 This is the specimen conjectured to have belonged to 
 the dugong, but the incisor resembles the corresponding 
 
382 APPENDIX I. 
 
 tooth of the wombat in its enamelled structure and posi- 
 tion; but it differs in the quadrilateral figure of its trans- 
 verse section, in which it corresponds with the inferior 
 incisors of the hippopotamus. 
 
 “Genus DASYURUS. 
 
 *¢ Das. lancarius (O).—I apply this name to the species 
 to which the following remains belong :— 
 
 « XI. Portions of the left side of the upper jaw. 
 
 « XI. (a) Ditto. | 
 
 « XI. (6) Left ramus of lower jaw, with lost grinders. 
 
 *« XI. (c) Anterior part of the right ramus of lower jaw. 
 
 “ This species closely resembles Das. ursinus, but differs 
 in being one-third larger, and in having the canines or 
 laniaries of proportionately larger size. 
 
 *« The position of the teeth in the specimen marked XL., 
 which are wider apart, leads me to doubt whether it is 
 the lower jaw of Das. lancarius, or of some extinct marsu- 
 pial carnivora of an allied but distinct species. 
 
 ‘The general results of the above examination are :-— 
 
 “Ist. That the fossils are not referable to any known 
 extra-Australian genus of Mammals. 
 
 «2nd. That the fossils are not referable, from the 
 present evidence, to any existing species of Australian 
 Mammals. : 
 
 «3rd. That the greater number certainly belong to 
 species either extinct or not yet discovered living in 
 Australia. 
 
 “4th. That the extinct species of Macropus, Dasyurus, 
 Phascolomys, especially Macr. Athos and Macr. Titan, are 
 larger than the largest known existing species. 
 
 “5th. That the remains of the saltatory animals, as the 
 Macropi, Helmaturi, and Hypsiprymni, are all of young 
 individuals; while those of the burrowing wombat, the 
 climbing phalanger, and the ambulatory dasyure are of 
 adults. 
 
 “ T remain, dear Sir, &c., 
 **( Signed ) RicHarRD OWEN.” 
 
APPENDIX I. 383 
 
 * To this it may be added, that the wombat’s skull is fully 
 as large as the skull of an elephant. 
 
 ‘ Nothing could be discovered, in the present state of 
 these caverns, at all likely to throw any light on the 
 history or age of the breccia, but the phenomena they 
 present seem to indicate more than one change in the 
 physical outline of the adjacent regions, and probably of 
 more distant portions of Australia, at a period antecedent 
 to the existing state of the country. 
 
 ‘ Dry earth occurred in the floor of both the caverns at 
 Wellington Valley and in the small chamber of the breccia 
 cave; it was found, as before stated, beneath the three 
 lines of stalagmite and the osseous breccia. It seems 
 probable, therefore, that this earth once filled the cave 
 also to the same line, and that the stalagmite then ex- 
 tended over the floor of red earth. Moreover, I am of 
 opinion that the interval between the stalagmite and 
 the roof was partly occupied by the bone breccia, of 
 which portions remain attached to the roof and sides 
 above the line of stalagmite. It is difficult to conceive 
 how the mass of red earth and stalagmitic floors could be 
 displaced, except by a subsidence in the original floor of 
 the cave. But the present floor contains no vestiges of 
 breccia fallen from the roof, nor any remains of the 
 stalagmitic crust once adhering to the sides— which are 
 both, therefore, probably deposited below the present 
 floor. In the external or upper part of the same cave, 
 the floor consisted of the red dust, and was covered 
 with loose fragments of rock, apparently fallen from 
 conglomerated masses of limestone and breccia, which 
 also, however, extended under the red earth there. Thus 
 it would appear that traces remain in these caverns, 
 first, of an aqueous deposit in the red earth found below 
 the stalagmite in one cavern, and beneath breccia in the 
 other; secondly, of a long dry period, as appears in the 
 thick crust of stalagmite, covering the lowest deposit in 
 the largest cavern, and during which some cavities were 
 filled with breccia, even with the external surface ; thirdly, 
 
384 APPENDIX I. 
 
 of a subsidence in the breccia and associated rocks; and 
 lastly, of a deposit of red earth similar to the first. 
 
 ‘The present floor in both caves bears all the evidence 
 of a deposition from water, which probably filled the 
 interior of the cavern to an unknown height. It is clear 
 that sediment deposited in this manner would, when the 
 waters were drawn off, be left in the state of fine mud, 
 and would become, on drying, a more or less friable earth. 
 Any water charged with carbonate of lime, which might 
 have been subsequently introduced, would have deposited 
 the calcareous matter in stalactites or stalagmites; but 
 the general absence of these is accounted for in the dry- 
 ness of the caves. ‘This sedimentary floor contained few 
 or no bones, except such as had previously belonged to 
 the breccia, as was evident from the minuter cavities having 
 been still filled with that substance. 
 
 ‘Ido not pretend to account for the phenomena pre- 
 sented by the caverns, yet it is evident, from the sedi- 
 ments of mud forming the extensive margins of the 
 Darling, that at one period the waters of that spacious 
 basin were of much greater volume than at present; and 
 it is more than probable that the caves of Wellington 
 Valley were twice immersed under temporary inundations. 
 I may, therefore, be permitted to suggest, from the evi- 
 dence I am about to detail of changes of level on the 
 coast, that the plains of the interior were formerly arms 
 of the sea, and that inundations of greater height have 
 twice penetrated into or filled with water the subter- 
 raneous cavities, and probably, on their recession from 
 higher parts of the land, parts of the surface have been 
 altered and some additional channels of fluviatile drainage 
 hollowed out. The accumulation of animal remains, very 
 much broken and filling up hollow parts of the surface, 
 show, at least, that this surface has modified since it was 
 first inhabited, and these operations appear to have taken 
 place subsequently to the extinction, in that part of Aus- 
 tralia, of the species whose remains are found in the 
 breccia, and previously to the existence in at least the 
 same districts of the present species. 
 
APPENDIX I. 385 
 
 ‘ No entire skeleton has been discovered, and very rarely 
 were any two bones of the same animal found together. 
 On the contrary, even the corresponding fragments of a 
 bone were frequently detected some yards apart. On the 
 other hand, it would appear, from the position of the teeth 
 in one skull, that they were only falling out from putre- 
 faction at the time the skull was finally deposited in the 
 breccia, and from the nearly natural position of the 
 smaller bones in the foot of a Dasyurus. It can scarcely 
 be doubted that this part of the skeleton was embedded in 
 the cement when the ligaments still bound the bones 
 together. ‘The united radius and ulna of a kangaroo are 
 additional evidences of the same kind; and yet, if the bones 
 have been so separated and dispersed, and broken into 
 minute fragments, as they now appear in this breccia, 
 while they were still bound together by ligaments, it is 
 difficult to imagine how that could take place under any 
 natural process with which we are acquainted. It may, 
 however, be observed, that the breccia is never found 
 below ground without unequivocal proofs in the rocks 
 accompanying it of disruption and subsidence, and that 
 the best specimens of single bones have been found 
 wedged between huge rocks where the breccia is found 
 like mortar between them, in situations eight or ten fathoms 
 under ground.’ 
 
 C-C 
 
386 
 
 APPENDIX No. II. 
 
 FOSSIL CLIFFS OF THE GREAT AUSTRALIAN BIGHT. 
 
 HE following description of the nature of the fossil 
 
 cliffs of the Australian Bight is taken from the 
 
 narrative of Mr. Eyre, who, in 1840, made a terrible and 
 disastrous journey round them :— 
 
 ‘Being now at a part of the cliffs where they receded 
 from the sea, and where they had at last become ac- — 
 cessible, I devoted some time to an examination of their 
 geological character. ‘The part that I selected was high, 
 steep, and bluff towards the sea, which washed its base, 
 presenting the appearance described by Captain Flinders, 
 as noted before. By crawling and scrambling among the 
 crags, I managed, at some risk, to get at these singular 
 cliffs. The brown or upper portion consisted of an 
 exceedingly hard, coarse, grey limestone, among which 
 some few shells were embedded, but which, from the hard 
 nature of the rock, I could not break out; the lower or 
 white part consisted of a gritty chalk, full of broken 
 shells and marine productions, and having a somewhat 
 saline taste: parts of it exactly resembled the formation 
 that I had found up to the north, among the fragments of 
 table land. The chalk was soft and friable at the surface, 
 and easily cut out with a tomahawk; it was traversed 
 horizontally by strata of flint, ranging in depth from six 
 to eighteen inches, and having varying thicknesses of 
 chalk between the several strata. The chalk had worn 
 away from beneath the hard rock above, leaving the 
 latter most frightfully overhanging, and threatening in- 
 stant annihilation to the intruder. Huge misshapen 
 masses were lying with their rugged pinnacles above the 
 
APPENDIX II. 387 
 
 water in every direction at the foot of the cliffs, plainly 
 indicating the frequency of a falling crag; and I felt quite 
 a relief when my examination was completed, and I got 
 away from so dangerous a post.’ * 
 
 . From this extract, it appears beyond much doubt that 
 the cliffs are the same formation as those of the Murray 
 and those of Mount Gambier. The upper and lower 
 deposits are identical with those of the latter places, and 
 strongly resemble the mode in which the Pleiocene Crag 
 occurs at home. Thus a geological period, which has 
 left but slender records in Europe, is largely represented 
 in Australia, and forms a very large portion of its con- 
 tinent. 
 
 * Expedition to Central Austraha, By EK. J. Eyre. london: Boone, 
 1845, 
 
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INDEX. 
 
 CACIA MOLLISSIMA, 30 
 Acalephaa, or jelly-fishes, 137 
 
 Adelaide, position of the city of, 18. 
 Character of the rocks near, 59- 
 Range of hills on which it is built, 
 110. Strata on which it is built, 208. 
 Earthquakes near, 213 
 
 Adelaide, colony of. See Australia, South 
 
 Adelsberg caves, 321 
 
 Adiantum assimile, 358 
 
 Albert, Lake, 204, 205 
 
 Alexandrina, Lake, 204 
 
 Alps, the Australian, 19. Their height, 
 19, note 
 
 America, now in her Pleiocene period, 
 139 
 
 Amygdaloidal trap at Grant Bay, 158 
 
 Araucarias found only in Norfolk Island 
 and Australia, 139 
 
 Arnhem’s Land, 15 
 
 — geological formation of, 17 
 
 Arthrozamie, 139 . 
 
 Asia Minor, tertiary strata of, 88 
 
 Asplenium laxum at the mouth of Van- 
 sittart’s Cave, 358 
 
 Asteroidea, fossil, 78 
 
 Astraea found on the South Australian 
 coast, 187, 188 
 
 Astro-Pecten, 83 
 
 Atolls, or ring islands, 13, 14. White 
 mud of the, 92. Description of an atoll, 
 96. Darwin’s theory of the formation 
 of, 125. Probable remains of atolls at 
 Swede’s Flat and Half-way Gulley, 
 151. Causes why one side of an atoll 
 is invariably broken down, 149 
 
 Australia, geography of, 12. 
 
 Nature of | 
 
 a new country told by the scenery of 
 the coast, 13. Geological queries to 
 be answered by Australia, 14. For- 
 mation of the coast, 15. The conti- 
 nent formerly separated into two 
 halves, 17. Australian Cordillera, 18. 
 The South Australian chain of moun- 
 tains, 19—-21. Traces of the action 
 of glaciers in them, 20. Metals and 
 minerals found in them, 21,22. Geology 
 of Northern and Western Australia, 22. 
 General view of Australian geology, 
 24. Meteorology of Australia, 24. 
 Geological connection between Aus- 
 tralia and the older hemisphere, 88. 
 Former higher temperature of Aus- 
 tralia, 99—134. Upheaval of a por- 
 tion of Australia now taking place, 
 135. Australia geologically far be- 
 hind the rest of the world, 139. 
 Badly adapted for the habitation of 
 man, 141— 144. Periodically dry 
 seasons, 145, The Australian abo- 
 rigines extremely degraded and help- 
 less, 146. Aspect of the coast of 
 Australia, 182. Upheaval of the 
 coast of Australia, 207. Absence of 
 active, and few extinct, volcanoes in 
 Australia, 225. Specimen of the 
 beauty of the Australian flora, 267. 
 Beasts of prey, 313. 
 
 Australia, South, ignorance respecting 
 its geology, 8. Mr. Selwyn’s cata- 
 logue of its rocks, 9. Its formation 
 and mineralogical productions, 9. The 
 South Australian range of mountains, 
 19—21. Description of the South- 
 
392 
 
 Eastern District, on the surface, 26. . 
 And of the rocks, 58. Table of fos- 
 sils found in, 77. Extent of the 
 South-Eastern District, 103. Boun- 
 dary line between South Australia 
 and Victoria, 120. Perils of the 
 coast from reefs, from Rivoli Bay to 
 Guichen Bay, 162. Sand-drifts round 
 the coast, 166. Antagonistic forces 
 at work on the coast, 170. Destruc- 
 tion of the cliffs in winter, 170. 
 ‘What has become of the detritus ? 
 171. History of the deposit as pre- 
 sented by the rocks, 171. Origin of 
 the sand of the Australian coast, 187. 
 Lakes on the coast, 195. Upheaval 
 of the coast, 205. Proved from the 
 coast-line, 206, And from the rivers, 
 208. Earthquakes, 213. Periods of 
 rest, 219. South Australian volcanoes, 
 224. Rich meadow-like appearance 
 of the country between Mounts Gam- 
 bier and Shanck, 264. The smaller 
 voleanoes, 282. Connection between 
 them, 288. Gold in South Australia, 
 298. Granite in the bed of the Mur- 
 ray river, 298. Caves in South 
 Australia, 299, et seg. 
 
 Australia, Western, coal beds of, 22. 
 Little known of the geology of, 22 
 
 AHIA BLANCA, sand dunes of, 
 and sandstone near, 222 
 
 Bald Head, coral found on, 115, 116. 
 Supposed fossil trees at, 165 
 
 Ballarat, rise of, 4 
 
 Bandicoot, bones of, found in the first 
 cave at Mosquito Plains, 335—338 
 
 Banksia integreefolia, of the ridges, £0. 
 Of the Honeysuckle Country, 42 
 
 Banksia ornata, 36 
 
 Bark, stringy, 31 
 
 Barossa Mountains, 110, 
 
 Barrier reef, the great, of the west side 
 of Australia, 22. Darwin’s descrip- 
 tion of the, 23 
 
 Barrier reefs of coral, 125 
 
 Basaltic rocks at Portland Bay, 121— 
 157. At Cape Bridgewater, 157 
 
 Bathurst Island, 15 
 
 ‘Beach Caves. 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Bats, resort for, ina cave at Limestone 
 Ridge, 366 
 
 Bay : — 
 
 — Grant, 153 
 
 — Guichen, 26, 52,53, 150, 163, 169 
 
 — Lacepede, 159 
 
 — Portland, 26, 121, 157 
 
 — Rivoli, 159, 206 
 
 See Caves 
 
 Beach terraces, formation of, 215. 
 vels of the, 218 
 
 Beasts of prey,-Australian, 313 
 
 Bermuda, white mud of the reefs of, 93 
 
 Bight, the Australian, 116. Evidence 
 of the nature of the, 118 . 
 
 Birds, scarcity of, in Australia, 140 
 
 ‘ Biscay Country’ or ‘Dead Men’s 
 Graves,’ 47 my 
 
 ‘Biscuits,’ limestone, 42, 43. 
 origin, 43 
 
 Blanche Caves, near Penola, 323. See 
 Caves 
 
 Blandowski, M., his survey and maps of 
 the three Lakes of Mount Gambier, 
 227 
 
 ‘ Blow-holes’ in the rocks at Guichen 
 Bay, 170 
 
 Blue Lake, on Mount Gambier, 228. 
 The four kinds of rock on the sides 
 of, 229. Nature of the eruptions 
 which have taken place in the crater 
 of, 243, 250, 253. Its beautiful 
 crystal water, 246. Its depth and 
 flat bottom, 247. Subsidence coinci- 
 dent with volcanic disturbance, 251 
 
 Bombs, volcanic, 268 
 
 Bones, deposits of, on the banks of 
 swamps, 54. And in crevices of the 
 limestone rocks, 56. Theories re- 
 specting bones and cayes, 8302. How 
 bones become preserved in rivers, 310. 
 Bones found in caves always larger 
 than those of species now in existence, 
 333. Bones in the first cave at Mos- 
 quito Plains, 334. Bones of Rodentia 
 found, 335. Bones at the mouth of 
 the Cave of Mount Burr, 357 
 
 Bonney Lake, 196. Description of it, 
 202 
 
 Boulders of trap rock in Grant Bay, 154 
 
 Brachiopoda, fossil, 79 
 
 Le- 
 
 Their 
 
bs a 
 
 “INDEX. — 393 
 
 Bridgewater Cape, 153. Rocks at, 154, 
 
 fehoe 
 
 . Bryozoa, fossil, of the limestone forma- 
 tion, 73. Meaning of the term, 73. 
 Characters of Bryozoa, 73. Difference 
 between it and the true coral, 73, 74. 
 Table of fossil Bryozoa found by the 
 author, 78. Age of Bryozoa, 88. 
 Deposit of Mount Gambier derived 
 from, 97 
 
 Bunce'’s description of the fossiliferous 
 limestone of Tasmania, 122 
 
 Burr, Mount, 287. Character of the 
 rocks, 287. Caves of Mount Burr, 
 353. — Roots of trees hanging from 
 the ceiling, 355. Mud at bottom, 356 
 
 Burra Burra copper mine, 5 
 
 Bursaria spinosa, of the ridges, 33 
 
 APE BRIDGEWATER, 153, 154, 
 157 
 
 — Grant, 153, 154, 163 
 
 — Jaffa, 162 
 
 — Jervis, 110 
 
 — Lannes, 152 
 
 — Otway, 121 
 
 — Paisley, New, 114, 116 
 
 — Yorke, 17 
 
 Caripe, the river, origin of, 317 
 
 Carpentaria, Gulf of, 15. Geological 
 formation of, 17 
 
 Casuarina squeefolia, the shea oak of 
 the colonists, 30 
 
 Cats, native (Dasyurus Maugii), 56. 
 Bones of, found in caves, 340. 
 
 Cave Station, origin of the immense 
 basins of chasms at, 240 
 
 Caves, 299. Near Mount Gambier, 64. 
 At Guichen Bay, 169. ‘Blow- 
 holes’ of the, 170. Denudation and 
 its effects, 299. Caves in the trap 
 and limestone, 300. Four kinds of 
 caves, 301. Points of resemblance 
 between them all, 301, 302. Bones 
 in caves, and theories respecting, 
 3802. -Caves made by fissures, 303. 
 How bones come into them, 304. 
 Parallel instances in South Austra- 
 lia, 305. Course of rivers in caves, 
 306. The Katavothra, or caves of 
 
 the Morea, 306. The Swede’s Flat, 
 309. How bones become preserved 
 in rivers, 310. Why bones alone are 
 found, 811. Caves which have been 
 dens of animals of prey, 313.. Sea- 
 beach caves, 314. Paviland Cave, 
 314. Egress caves, 316. None in 
 Australia, 316. The Cueva del Gua- 
 charo, 316. The mammoth caves of 
 Kentucky and Tennessee, 319.  In- 
 terest attaching to caves, 321, First 
 cave at Mosquito Plains, 323. .Se- 
 cond cave, 325. Third cave, 327. 
 Dried corpse of a native, 329, Ro- 
 bertson’s Parlour, 331. Connection 
 between it and deeper caves, 332. 
 Coralline fossiliferous limestone com- 
 posing the rocks, 333. Bones found 
 in. caves always larger than those 
 which are contemporaneous with 
 man, 333. Bones in the first cave at 
 the Mosquito Plains, 334. Bones of 
 Rodentia found, 335. Other bones, 
 338, How the animals were em- 
 bedded, 342. Result of inundation,343, 
 et seg. Causeof the signs of floods 
 near the voleanoes, 347. How the 
 limestone dissolved, 348. The theory 
 of the bones found in .caves being 
 relics of the Deluge quite untenable, 
 349. Caves of Mount Burr, 353. 
 Vansittart’s Cave, 357. Mitchell’s 
 Cave, 359. The Drop-Drop Cavern, 
 860. Ellis’s Cave, 363. Cave near 
 Mount Shanck, 365. Caves at Lime- 
 stone Ridge Station, 365. Bat Cave, 
 366, note. Other smaller caves, 366. 
 Sir J. Mitchell’s description of the 
 caves in Wellington Valley quoted, 
 373 
 
 Cellepora gambierensis, 
 Where mosily found, 91 
 
 Cephalopoda, fossil, found by the author, 
 80 
 
 Cerithium in the recent limestone, 190 
 
 Cetacea, fossil remains of, found on the 
 banks of the Murray, 80 
 
 Chalk formation, origin of the, 13, 14. 
 Similarity of the mud of coralline 
 reefs to chalk, 92, 93. Origin of 
 the chalk of England and France, 
 
 74, 85, 97. 
 
394 
 
 96. Extent of the chalk formation 
 of Europe, 100 
 
 Chara, remarkable growth of the, in a 
 fresh-water lagoon, 53 
 
 Cibotium Billardieri, 359 
 
 Cidaris, fossil spines of, 81 
 
 Cirripedia, fossil, 78 
 
 Clarence Strait, 15. 
 
 Clune’s gold mine, near Ballarat, 297 
 
 Clypeaster, 77 
 
 Coal, beds of, in Victoria, 22. 
 Western Australia, 22 
 
 Coast, the geological character of a coun- 
 try told from the appearance of the, 13 
 
 Colac, Lake, deposit of bones on the 
 banks of, 55 
 
 Conchifera, fossil, found on the banks 
 of the Murray, 105 
 
 Conclusions, summary of, 368 
 
 Concretions of lime and sand of the 
 Cape Jaffa reefs, 162, 163. Their 
 origin, 166. Not fossil trees, 167 
 
 Conglomerate, tenacious, found in Grant 
 Bay, 159 
 
 Coorong, the, 195, 364. 
 of, 197 
 
 Copper mines of Burra Burra, 5. 
 of Kapunda, 6 
 
 Coral, moss. See Bryozoa 
 
 Corals, found on Bald Head, 115, 116. 
 Depth of sea in which they can live, 
 89. How deposited, 90. Corals of 
 Mosquito Plains, 133 
 
 Coral islands, or atolls, 13, 14. Mr. 
 Darwin’s theory of the formation of 
 the, 125 
 
 Coralline limestone, 86 
 
 — reefs, 91. The mud derived from, 
 92. Description of a reef, 94. 
 Difficulty as to the nature of the 
 coral, 99. Extent of the formation, 
 99. Class of reefs to which the 
 coralline crag belongs, 127. Cessation 
 of the coralline formation, 148 
 
 Corethrostylis Schultzenii, 53 
 
 Cordillera, Australian, 18 
 
 Cornwall, thie sand formation of, 184 
 
 Correa cardinalis of the heath country, 
 37 
 
 Crag, lower, of England, probable iden- 
 tity of the, with the tertiary deposits 
 
 In 
 
 Description 
 
 And 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 of South Australia, 85, 86. Features 
 of the crag, 86 
 
 Crag, upper, description of the, 150. Its 
 extent, 150. Derived from an ocean 
 current, 151. Material of which it 
 is composed, 152. Upper crag at 
 Cape Lannes, 152. Of Grant Bay, 
 155. Other localities in Australia 
 in which it is found, 159. Its vari- 
 able capability for resisting the action 
 of the atmosphere and sea-water, 
 161. The concretions called fossil- 
 trees, 163. History of the deposit of 
 the upper crag, 173. Evidence of 
 its partial destruction, 174. Want 
 of uniformity in its thickness, 174. 
 Causes of this, 175. Raised, 175. 
 
 Its subsequent removal, 176. Its 
 age, 176,177. Compared with the 
 coralline crag of Suffolk, 177. Ab- 
 
 sence of fossils in the South Austra- 
 lian crag, 178 
 
 Craters. See Volcanoes. 
 dence, 284 
 
 Cray-fish of tlfe plains, 43, 51. 
 made by the, 43 
 
 ‘ Cribbage-pegs, fossil,’ 81 
 
 Cristellaria of the limestone rock, 71 
 
 Cruziana cucurbita, found at Nuriootpa, 
 21, note 
 
 Cyclops vulgaris in the swamps, 52 
 
 Cypris, the, in the lakes of South Aus- 
 tralia, 52 
 
 Of subsi- 
 
 Holes 
 
 ARWIN, Mr., his theory of the 
 limestone formation, 125 
 Dasyurus Maugii, or native cat, bones of 
 the, found in caves, 340. Found in 
 Wellington Valley, 382 
 ‘ Dead Men’s Graves,’ or ‘ Biscay Coun- 
 try,’ 47. Origin of the graves, 47 
 Deluge, the bones found in caves no 
 evidence of the, 349 
 Denudation and its effects, 299 
 Desimade in the swamps, 52 
 Diamonds found in the South Australian 
 range of hills, 21 
 Diatomaceze in the swamps, 52. 
 composed of the frustules of, 53 
 
 Sand 
 
 ‘Dillwynia floribunda, 37 
 
 Dimyaria, fossil, found by the author, 79 
 
INDEX. 395 
 
 Dingo, the Australian, 313 
 
 Diprotodon, bones of, found in Welling- 
 ton Valley, 381 
 
 Dismal Swamp, the, of the Sonth- 
 Eastern District, 27 
 
 Disturbance, common in the northern, 
 but uncommon in the southern hemi- 
 sphere, 225, 226: 
 
 Dolerite found in the craters of Mount 
 Gambier, 258 
 
 Dolomite of the ‘ Biscay Country,’ 48. 
 Origin of, 48 
 
 Drainage, subterranean, 364 
 
 Drop- Den Cavern, 360 
 
 Droughts, periodical, of Australia, 145 
 
 Dunes, sand. See Sand Dunes 
 
 ARTH, analogy of the present state 
 of its crust with former geological 
 
 epochs, 136 
 
 Earthquakes, and the upheaving of the 
 South Australian coast, 213 
 
 Echinidz, beds of fossil spines of, 81 
 
 Echinoidea, 77 
 
 Echinolampus, 77 
 
 Edward, Lake, 283. 
 canic action, 283 
 
 Edward, Mount, 288 
 
 Egress caves. See Caves 
 
 Eliza, Lake, formation of salt taking 
 place in, 69, 195. Description of, 
 199 
 
 Ellis’s Cave, 363. An underground 
 channel of drainage, 364 
 
 Entomostraca, 78 
 
 Entromostraca brachiopoda, 73 
 
 Epacris impressa of the heath country, 
 37 | 
 
 Eremacausis, instance of, in the caves of 
 the Mosquito Plains, 329. 
 of, 330 
 
 Etna, bottom of the crater of, 272 
 
 Eucalyptus dumosa, or mallee scrub, 33 
 
 Eucalyptus fabrorum, or stringy bark, 31 
 
 Eucalyptus resinifera of the ridges, 30 
 
 Euro, bones of the, found, 361 
 
 Evidences of vol- 
 
 Causes 
 
 AIRY, PORT, 121 
 Fascicularia, found on the South 
 Australian coast, 187, 188, note 
 
 Fern, the common Australian, 30 
 
 Fern-tree growing in a cave from bottom 
 to top, 358 
 
 Flinders, Captain, his description of the 
 coast of South Australia, 114 
 
 Flints, layers of, in the limestone forma- 
 tion, 64. Origin of, 65. Separation 
 of silica, 65. Origin of the beach 
 terraces, 217 
 
 Flora of South Australia, 36, 37. Its 
 correspondence to the secondary pe- 
 riod, 189. Beauty of the flora of 
 Australia, 267 
 
 Fish ina lake highly impregnated with 
 salt, 54 Fossil remains of, found by 
 the author, 80 
 
 Fissure caves, See Caves 
 
 Foraminifera in limestone formation, 70 
 
 Fossil cliffs of the great Australian 
 Bight described by Mr. Eyre, 386 
 
 Fossiliferous rock of part of the coast of 
 Australia, 18. Extent of, in South 
 America, 225 
 
 Fossils not found in the South Austra- 
 lian mountains, except at one or two 
 points, 20. Fossils found in Victoria ob- 
 served to agree with those of Europe, 
 22. Fossils of the upper limestone, 61. 
 Singular fossils found near Penola, 
 75. List of fossils found on the banks 
 of the Murray, by Captain Sturt, 105. 
 Fossils to the eastward of the boundary 
 line between Victoria and South Aus- 
 tralia, 120. Evidence of transport of 
 fossils, 134. Absence of fossils in 
 the Guichen Bay deposits, 152, 153, 
 178 
 
 Fossils, list of, found in South Aus- 
 
 tralia ;: — 
 
 — Asteroidea, 78 
 
 — Astrea, 187 
 
 — Astro-Pecten, 83 
 
 — Brachiopoda, 79 
 
 — Bryozoa, 73, 78 
 
 — Cellepora gambierensis, 74, 85,91, 
 97, 105, 333 
 
 — Cephalopoda, 80 
 
 — Cerithium, 190 
 
 — Cidaris, 81 
 
 — Cirripedia, 78 
 
 — Clypeaster, 77 
 
396 INDEX. 
 
 Fossils — continued : — 
 
 — Conchifera, 105 
 
 — Cristellaria, 71 
 
 — Cruziana cucurbita, 21, note 
 
 — Dimyaria, 79 
 
 — Kchinide, 81 
 
 — Kchinoidea, 77 
 
 — Echinolampus, 77 
 
 — Entomostraca, 78 
 
 — Entomostraca brachiopoda, 73. 
 
 — Fascicularia, 187, 188, note 
 
 ~— Foraminifera, 70, 77, 189 
 
 — Gasteropoda, 79 
 
 — Globigerina bulloides, 72, note 
 
 — Glossopteris Browniana, 22 
 
 — Lunulites, 75 
 
 — Mollusca, 106 
 
 — Monomyaria, 79 
 
 — Monostega, 71 
 
 — Murex asper, 84 
 
 — Nautilus ziczac, 83 
 
 — Operculina arabica, 72, note 
 
 — Pectens, 74, 76, 333 
 
 — Pecten Jacobeeus, 160 
 
 — Pentamenus oblongus, 20 
 
 — Pisces, 80 
 
 — Polyozoa, 84 
 
 — Radiata, 105 
 
 — Salicornaria, 105 
 
 — Spatangus Forbesii, 75, 83, 165 
 
 — Terebratula compta, 74, 121 
 
 — Trochus, 77 
 
 — Turritella terebralis, 83 
 
 — Venus exalbata, 190 
 
 — Zoophytes, 77 
 
 Francis, St., Isles of, formation of the, 
 12 
 
 Fringing reefs of coral, 125 
 
 AMBIER, MOUNT, native wells near, 
 
 63. Caves near, 64. Fossils found 
 at, 72 and note, 74. Upper crag forma- 
 tion, 160.. Oyster-shell bed at, 160, 
 161. Description of the extinct crater 
 of, 227. Captain Sturt’s observations, 
 227. M. Blandowski’s maps of the 
 three lakes, 227. Description of the 
 three lakes, 228. And of the crater 
 walls, 235. The oldest crater oblite- 
 rated, 237. What kind of eruption has 
 
 ‘taken place to produce the appearances 
 
 presented, 237. Its small extent, 239, 
 Causes of the non-appearance of ejec- 
 tamenta on the east side of the crater, 
 240. The promontories or ridges 
 jutting out from the walls,241. Ac- 
 count of an active volcano resembling 
 Mount Gambier, 248. Underground 
 flow of the laya of Mount Gambier, 
 250. Number of craters at, 2538. 
 Three periods of their activity, 254. 
 Age of the crater, 255. Fossils in 
 the rocks of, 255. Peculiarities of 
 the strata of, 255. Period of the 
 last eruption, 256. Minerals found 
 in the craters, 258, Review of the 
 past of Mount Gambier, 259. Re- 
 sumé of its geological features, 263. 
 Beautiful view from its summit, 264. 
 Connection between Mounts Gambier 
 and Shanck, 279. Hilly country 
 round Mount Gambier, and probable 
 causes, 280 
 
 Gasteropoda, fossil found by the author, 
 79 
 
 Geology, importance of the science of, to 
 man, 2—4 
 
 George, Lake, 195. Description of it, 
 201 
 
 German Flat, the quagmire so called, 
 203. As seen from Mount Muir- 
 head, 204. 
 
 Glaciers, traces of the action of, in the 
 South Australian chain of mountains, . 
 20 
 
 Glenelg river, 15, 27, 28, note. Cha- 
 racter of the plains through which it 
 runs, 41. Upper crag formation at 
 the mouth of the, 159. Evidence it 
 affords of the upheaval of the coast, 
 209 
 
 Globigerina bulloides, 72, note 
 
 Glossopteris Browniana, in the coal beds 
 of Victoria, 22 
 
 Goa, Mount, in the Sandwich Islands, 
 description of the volcano of, 248 
 
 Gold found in the South Australian 
 range, 21. Trap rock not always an 
 indication of the existence of, 297. 
 History of the formation in which 
 gold is found in Victoria, 297. Clunes 
 
INDEX. 397 
 
 Mine, near Ballarat, 297. Gold of 
 South Australia, 298 
 Graham, Mount, black mud swamp at 
 the foot of, 210, 287, 364 
 Granite rocks in the Murray river, 118, 
 119. In South Australia, 298 
 Grant Bay, extent and boundaries of, 
 153, 154. Boulders of trap rock in, 
 154. Strata of the coast described, 
 154, et seq. : 
 Grant, Cape, 153. Rocks at, 154. 
 Twisted concretions in the cliffs at, 
 163. Their origin, 164 
 Guacharo, the Cueva del, Humboldt’s 
 description of, 316 
 Guichen Bay, 26. Fresh-water lagoon 
 near, 53. Thick growth of the com- 
 mon Chara in the, 53. Description 
 of the rocks at, 150. Their extent, 
 150. Their origin, 151. Material 
 of which the rocks are composed, 152. 
 Wild scenery of the coast, 153. Ab- 
 sence of fossils at, 152, 153. Twisted 
 concretions in the cliffs at, 163. Their 
 origin, 164. Cavesat, 169. ‘ Blow- 
 holes’ at, 169. Sand-hills at, 171. 
 Genera of shells found at, 194 
 Gum of the Eucalyptus resinifera, 30. 
 Of the wattle, 30 
 Gum-trees of the ridges in South Aus- 
 tralia, 29 
 Gypsum, crystals of, in the mud of the 
 lakes, 69 
 
 ALF-WAY GULLY, probably the 
 remains of a reef, 131 
 
 Hawdon, Lake, 193. Description of, 
 195, 198 
 
 Heat, volcanic sand acting as a non- 
 conductor of, 245. ‘Nasmyth’s ex- 
 periment, 245 
 
 Heath, character and extent of, in South 
 Australia, 32 . 
 
 Henderson Island, Lyell’s description of, 
 quoted, 156 
 
 _ Hills, character of the six chains of, 214 
 
 Honeysuckle country, the, of South 
 Australia, 33, 42 
 
 Hopeless, Mount, 110 
 
 Hyzena caves, 313 
 
 Hypsiprymous, bones of, found in Wel- 
 lington Valley, 380 
 
 CARI, existing on living polypifers, 93, 
 Igneous rocks of South Australia, 
 
 226, et seq. See Volcanoes 
 
 Infusorie, the, in the swamps, 52, 
 Silica in the shells of, 65. 
 
 Inundations, former, in South Austra- 
 lia, 343, 345 
 
 Investigator’s Straits, 112 
 
 Iron pyrites in the upper limestone, 67 
 
 Island, Bathurst, 15 
 
 — Henderson, 156 
 
 — Kangaroo, 15, 112 
 
 —. Keeling, 93 
 
 — Julia Percy, 292 
 
 — Melville, 15 
 
 Islands, coral, 13, 14 
 
 —- St. Francis, 119 
 
 AFFA, CAPE, reef of rocks at, 162. 
 Upheaval of the reefs at, 207 
 James, Mr. G. P. R., his romantic ac- 
 count of Mount Gambier, 227. 
 
 Jervis, Cape, 15, 16, 110. Geological 
 formation of, 17 
 
 Johnstone’s Station, cave at, 366 
 
 Julia Percy Island, an extinct volcano, 
 292 
 
 ANGAROO ISLAND, 15, 112 
 Kangaroo bones in the swamps, 55. 
 Those found in the Wellington Valley 
 much larger than those of any existing 
 species, 341. Bones of a large kan- 
 garoo, 361 
 Kapunda, town of, 6. Mine of, 6 
 Katavothra of the Morea, their similarity 
 to the caves at Mosquito Plains, 344 
 Keeling Island, white mud of, 93 
 Kentucky, mammoth caves of, 317 
 Kilauea, description of the active volcano 
 of, 248 
 Kirkdale Cave, in Yorkshire, 312 
 Kooringa, rise of the town of, 5 
 Kosciusko, Mount, its height, 19, note 
 
398 INDEX. 
 
 ACEPEDE BAY, upper crag for- 
 mation at, 159 
 
 Lagoons, fresh-water, of the coast, 196. 
 Limestone, formation of the, 197 
 
 Lake Albert, 204, 205 
 
 — Alexandrina, 204 
 
 — Blue, 228, 243, 250, 253 
 
 — Bonney, 196 
 
 — Colac, 55 
 
 — Coorong, the, 195, 197 
 
 — Edward, 283 
 
 — Eliza, 69, 195 
 
 — George, 195, 201 
 
 — Hawdon, 193, 195, 198 
 
 — Leake, 283 
 
 — Middle, 230 
 
 — near Mount Shanck, :266 
 
 — Roy, 51 
 
 — St. Clair, 195, 199 
 
 — Torrens, 110, 113, 117 
 
 — Valley, 231, 240 ; 
 
 Lakes, two remarkable for their deposits, 
 58. Crystals of gypsum and natron 
 found on the shores of the, 69. Lakes 
 on the coast of South Australia, re- 
 marks on the, 195, e¢ seq. 
 
 Lannes, Cape, upper crag at, 152 
 
 Lap-lap, the fish of the swamps so called, 
 50 
 
 Lava of Mount Gambier, 250. Of Mount 
 Shanck, 267 
 
 Lawrence Rock, an extinct crater, 292. 
 Nature of the strata of, 292. Over- 
 laid by crag, 293. 
 
 Leake, Lake, 283. Character of the 
 banks, 283. Evidences of volcanic 
 action, 283 
 
 Leake’s Bluff, 264, 284. Geological 
 character of, 285. Fault at, 285, 286 
 
 Limestone ridges, 30 
 
 Limestone Ridge Station, caves at, 365 
 
 Limestone ‘biscuits,’ 42, 43. Their 
 origin, 44 
 
 Limestone, the upper, 60. Horizontality 
 of the beds, 60. Distribution of fos- 
 sils in the, 61. ‘Table of fossils found 
 in the, 77, et seg. Age of the beds, 
 82. Position of the beds, as reported 
 by Dr. Busk, 84. Their probable 
 identity with the lower crag of Eng- 
 land, 85, 86. Similarity of limestone 
 
 to coral rock, 97. Extent of the for- 
 mation in South Australia, 100, et 
 seg. Boundaries of the district, 103. 
 Fossiliferous limestone on each side of 
 Lake Torrens, 113. Extent of the 
 formation to the eastward, 120. The 
 Tasmanian beds, 122. Origin of the 
 limestone formation, 124. Subsidence, 
 124. Darwin’s theory, 125. Probable 
 remains of reefs at Swede’s Flat and 
 Half-way Gulley, 131. Bed of oyster- 
 shells on the top of nearly every lime- 
 stone cliff, 160, 161. Limestone 
 concretions at Cape Jaffa Reef, 162. 
 Features of the upper limestone, 189. 
 Shell deposits of this formation, 190. 
 The limestone of Guichen Bay, 194. 
 Of the lagoons, 197. The six chains 
 of hills, 220. Causes of caves in 
 limestone, 300. See Caves 
 
 Limestone, coralline, 86. Coralline fos- 
 siliferous limestone composing the 
 rocks of the caves, 333 
 
 Limnea stagnalis in the swamps, 51 
 
 Lincoln, Port, metamorphic rocks about, 
 119 
 
 Lithodomi, 214. Borings of, at Mount 
 Gambier, 160. And at other places, 
 174 
 
 Lofty, Mount, 20. Rocks of, 59 
 
 Lunulites found near Penola, 75 
 
 ACROPUS TITAN, bones of the, 
 357, note 
 
 Macropus Athos and Titan, bones of, 
 found in Wellington Valley, 378 
 
 Magnesia, large quantity of, in the ‘Bis- 
 cay Country,’ 48. Magnesian fer- 
 mentation, 48 
 
 Magpie, native (Gymnorrhina leuconota), 
 56 
 
 Mallee scrub of South Australia, 33. 
 Its character and extent, 83 
 
 Mammalia, low organisation of the, of 
 Australia, 140 
 
 Mammoth caves of Kentucky and Ten- 
 nessee, 317 
 
 Man, developement of an approach to a 
 more complex organisation ending in, 
 137 
 
INDEX. 399 
 
 _ Marsupialia of Australia, 140 
 
 M‘Arthur, Mr. Donald, singular under- 
 ground sounds heard at his station, 57 
 
 M‘Donnell, Port, sheets of flint layers at, 
 64 
 
 M‘Intyre, Mount, 264, 288 
 
 Melaleuca, the tea-tree of the colonists, 
 228 
 
 Melbourne, its appearance in 1850 com- 
 pared with that of the present day, 3. 
 Earthquakes at, 213 
 
 Melicerita, genus of, peculiar to the ter- 
 tiary beds of South Australia, 85 
 
 Melville Island, 15 
 
 Meredith’s:- Station, cave at, 366 
 
 Mesembryanthemum of the coast at 
 Guichen Bay, 153 
 
 Metals found in the South Australian 
 range, 21 
 
 Middle Lake, of Mount Gambier, 230. 
 Nature of the eruption from the crater 
 of, 242 
 
 Minerals found in the South Australian 
 range, 21. Found in the craters of 
 Mount Gambier, 258 
 
 Mitchell’s Cave, 359. Its deep sea-blue 
 pool of clear water, 359. Sand-pipes, 
 359 
 
 Moleside rivulet,in Tasmania, 122. Cha- 
 racter of the country near the, 122 
 
 Mollusca, fresh-water, of the swamps of 
 the South-Eastern District, 51 
 
 Mollusca, fossil, found on the banks of 
 the Murray, 106 
 
 Monomyaria, fossil, 79 
 
 Monostega of the limestone rock, 71 
 
 Morea, caves in the, 306 
 
 Mosquito Plains, absence of trees in 
 parts of the, 49. Probable causes of 
 this, 50. .Strata of the, 76. Coral 
 of the caves, 91. Fossils of the, 
 133. Caves at, 323. First cave, 
 323. Second cave, 325. Third 
 
 cave, 327. Dried corpse of a native © 
 there, 329. Robertson’s parlour, 
 331. Connection between it and 
 
 deeper caves, 332. Bones in the 
 first cave, 334. 
 
 Mosquito Swamp, 364 
 
 Moss coral. See Bryozoa 
 
 Mount Burr, 253, 287 
 
 Mount Edward, 288 
 
 — Gambier, 63, 64, 72, 227, 290 
 
 — Graham, 210, 287, 364 
 
 — Hopeless, 110 
 
 — Lofty, 20, 59 
 
 — M‘Intyre, 288 
 
 — Muirhead, 204, 286 
 
 — Napier, 157 
 
 — Rouse, 157 
 
 — Shanck, 63, 250, 261, 290, 365 
 
 Mountains, the Australian Cordillera, 
 18. The South Australian Chain, 19. 
 Their dimensions, 20 
 
 — Barossa, 110 
 
 — chain from Cape Jervis to Mount 
 Hopeless, 110 
 
 Muirhead, Mount, 286, 
 volcanic action, 287 
 
 Munbannar, caves near the town of, 
 365 
 
 Murchison, Sir Roderick, his prediction 
 as to the auriferous regions of Aus- 
 tralia, 4 
 
 Murex asper, 84 
 
 Murray river, 27. Fossil bones of 
 Cetacea found on the banks of the, 
 80. Capt. Sturt’s survey of the, 
 104. List of fossils found by Capt. 
 Sturt on the, 105. Description of 
 the cliffs, 106. Country to the 
 north of the river, 109. Extent of 
 the formation in a westerly direction, 
 110. Fossils found on the, 133. 
 Lakes lying at the mouth of the 
 river, 204. Evidence it affords of 
 the upheaval of the Australian coast, 
 209. Granite of the bed of the, 
 298 
 
 Murray Scrub, the country ‘so called, 
 111 
 
 Myrmecobius, the, 339 
 
 Evidences of 
 
 AMES of places, native, 365, note 
 
 L Napier, Mount, 157 
 
 Natron found on the shores of the lakes, 
 69 
 
 Nautilus ziezac, fossil, of England and 
 South Australia, 83 
 
 Negro, Rio, great sandstone plateau of, 
 222 
 
400 INDEX. 
 
 Norfolk Island, flora of, 139 
 Nummulites, absence of, in the upper 
 limestone, 75 
 
 AK, the shea, of South Australia, 
 30 
 
 Olivine found in the craters of Mount 
 Gambier, 258 
 
 Operculina Arabica, 72, note 
 
 ‘ Otway, Cape, 121 
 
 Oxyrrhinus Woodsii, of Mount Gambier, 
 1338 
 
 Oyster-shells, abundance of, on the tops 
 of the cliffs of the Murray river, 109. 
 Bed of, on the top of nearly every 
 limestone cliff, 160. Period of the 
 deposit, 161. 
 
 ACIFIC OCEAN, coral islands of 
 ‘the, 125. Subsidence of a large 
 
 portion of the bed of the, 135 
 
 Paisley, New Cape, 114, 116 
 
 Paludina, banks of the shells of, at 
 Lake Roy, 51 
 
 Pampean formation, extent of the, 225 
 
 Paviland Cave, 314 
 
 Peak of Derbyshire, 322 
 
 Pectens, 74, 76 
 
 Penola, limestone ridge at, 31.  Fresh- 
 water mollusca found in the neigh- 
 bourhood of, 51. Singular fossils 
 found near, 75. Caves near, 323. 
 See Caves 
 
 Pentamenus oblongus, found near Ade- 
 laide, 20 
 
 Phalangesta, bones of, found in Welling- 
 ton Valley, 380 
 
 Phascogale penicillata, or native squir- 
 rel, bones of, found in caves, 339 
 
 Phascogale pygmza, 339 
 
 Phascolomys, bones of, found in Welling- 
 ton Valley, 381 
 
 Plain, extensive, of the South-Eastern 
 District, 27 
 
 Plain, strata of the South-Eastern Dis- 
 trict, 58 
 
 Pleiocene strata of Rome, Sir C. Lyell on 
 the, 87 
 
 Polyozoa of the tertiary beds, 84 
 
 Porphyry hills in the north of the South 
 Australian District, 27 
 
 Portland, town of, its cold and sombre 
 appearance, 26 
 
 Portland Bay, 26. Coralline limestone 
 at, 121. Fossils at, identical with 
 those of Mount Gambier, 121, 133. 
 Basaltic rocks. on the tops of the 
 cliffs at, 157 
 
 Portland, Victoria, veins of soapstone 
 at, 65. Shell deposits near, 191, 
 Evidence of subterranean “Volcanic 
 action at, 291 
 
 Post-Pleiocene formation. 
 stone, upper. 
 
 Primary formation of the eastern and 
 western sides of Australia, 16, 18 
 Pteris esculenta, or common Australian 
 
 fern, 30, 358 
 Punch-bowl basin of Mount Gambier, 
 232. Conjectures as to its origin, 233 
 
 See Lime- 
 
 Pyrites, iron, in the upper limestone, 67 
 
 (hisgeth ie of German Flat, 208 
 
 ADIATA, fossil, fuund on the banks 
 of the Murray, 105 
 
 Reedy Creek, an embryo river, 210—212 
 
 Reef, the great Barrier, of the west 
 side of Australia, 22. Darwin’s de- 
 scription of the, 23 
 
 Reefs, Cape Jaffa, 162. Singular ap- 
 pearance of some of them, 162. 
 
 Reefs, coralline, 91. Description of a 
 reef, 94. Of the Pacific, different 
 kinds of, 125. Why no remains of 
 reefs are found, 130. Probably some 
 remains at Swede’s Flat and Half-way - 
 Gulley, 131. Causes fatal to the 
 progress of, 148. Subsequent history 
 of, 181. Upheaval of the reefs at 
 Rivoli Bay, 206. And at Cape Jaffa, 
 207 
 
INDEX. — 401 
 
 Ridges formed on the east shores of the 
 swamps, 29. Different kinds of, 30. 
 Vegetation of, 30. 
 
 River :— 
 
 —-Glenelg, 15, 27, 28, note, 41, 159, 
 
 209 
 
 — Murray, 27, 80, 104, 209, 298 
 
 — Wannon, 210 
 
 — Wimmera, 27 
 
 Rivers of South Australia, proof they 
 afford of the upheaval of the coast 
 now going on, 208. Arriver in an 
 early stage of developement, 210. 
 Underground rivers, 122, 306. The 
 present banks of rivers formerly the 
 beds, 311] ; 
 
 Rivoli Bay, upper crag formation at, 159. 
 Recent alterations in the soundings 
 at, 206 
 
 Robe Town, its cheerful aspect, 26 
 
 Rocks of the South-Eastern District, 58. 
 Character of the rocks of South Aus- 
 tralia, 58. 
 
 Rodents of Australia, 140 
 
 Rome, Sir C. Lyell, on the Pleiocene 
 strata of, 87 
 
 Rouse, Mount, 157 
 
 Roy, Lake, banks of, fresh-water mol- 
 lusca at, 51 
 
 sant CREEK, 364 
 Salt-pans, or ‘Salinas,’ in the South- 
 Eastern District, 69. Origin of these 
 deposits, 69. Lake Eliza, 69 
 Salt, rock, found in the upper limestone, 
 67. Suggestions as to its origin, 
 63 
 Sand of the South-Eastern District, 37. 
 Different kinds of, 37. Theory of the 
 origin of sand, 39. Composed en- 
 tirely of the frustules of Diatomacez, 
 52 
 Sand dunes, 167. Immense number of, 
 round the coast of South Australia, 
 166. Contain no perfect fossils nor 
 signs of stratification, 167. Sand- 
 hills at Guichen Bay and Cape Bridge- 
 water, 171. Interminable sand dunes 
 of the coast of Australia, 183. Cha- 
 
 DD 
 
 racter of the sand, 183. Its extent 
 inland, 183. The sand formation of 
 Cornwall, 184. Origin of the sand 
 on the South Australian coast, 187. - 
 And of calcareous sandstone, 188. 
 Its composition, 188. Shell deposits, 
 190. Extent of the sandy coast, 219. 
 Different kinds of the sand, 219. Im- 
 mense size of some of the dunes, 219. 
 Appearance of the dunes on windy 
 days, 219. Encroachment of the sand 
 on the land, 220. No indication of 
 the formation of the sand into stone, 
 220. Trees buried in the sand, 221. 
 Sandstone formation of the coast below 
 the sand, 222. Why so associated 
 222 
 
 Sandhurst, rise of, 4 
 
 Sand-pipes of the upper limestone, 61. 
 Origin of, 62. Those exposed in 
 Mitchell’s Cave, 359 
 
 Sandstone, ferruginous, of Cape Yorke 
 and Arnhem’s Land, 17. Calcareous, 
 of Guichen Bay, 150. Of Grant Bay, 
 155. Formation of sandstone on the 
 coast below the sand, 222. Why so 
 associated, 223 
 
 Sandy ridges, 31. Vegetation of, 31 
 
 Scenery, dependence of, on geology, 25 
 
 Serub, character and extent of, in South 
 Australia, 33 
 
 Sea, temperature of the, in former times 
 greater than now, 134 
 
 Sea-water, colour of, 179 
 
 Secondary rocks, absence of, in Australia, 
 140. State of the earth after the 
 secondary period in Europe, 141 
 
 Shanck, Mount, native wells near,63. An 
 extinct voleano, underground flow of 
 the lava of, 250. Description of the 
 extinct voleano of, 261, 263, et seq. 
 
 Country around it, 263. Beautiful 
 little lake near, 266, 269. Vol- 
 canic bombs, 268. The great 
 
 cone of Mount Shanck, 269. Its steep 
 ascent, 269. View of the crater 
 from the top, 269. Its shape, 270. 
 Remains of a former crater on the 
 west side, 270. Trees growing inside 
 and outside the basin of the older 
 erater, 271. Composition of the more 
 
402 INDEX. 
 
 recent crater wall, 272. Bottom of 
 the crater, 272, 273. Peculiarity in 
 the layers of ash, 273. No apparent 
 outlet for the lava, 273. Stream 
 of lava on the north, 273. Curious 
 mode in which it is heaped, 274. A 
 current from the ancient crater, 275. 
 Causes of the heaping up, 276. Con- 
 nection between Mount Gambier and 
 Mount Shanck, 279. Dismal view 
 of the coast line from Mount Shanck, 
 281. Cave at, 365 
 
 Shea Oak, the, 30 
 
 Shell deposits on the coast, 190. Lo- 
 ealities in which they occur, 191, e 
 seg. Their extent inland, 193. Ob- 
 servations on those found at Guichen 
 Bay, 194 
 
 Silica. See Flint 
 
 Silurian rocks from Cape Yorke to Port 
 Phillip, 18 
 
 Soapstone, veins of, at Portland, in Vic- 
 toria, 65 
 
 Soil, different kind of, on the South 
 Australian ridges, 830. Varieties of, 
 in the South-Eastern District, 38 
 
 Sounds, singular, of the swamps which 
 have an underground drainage, 57 
 
 Spatangus Forbesii, 75, 83 
 
 Spencer’s Gulf, 15, 16, 112. Evidence 
 at, of periods of upheaval and of rest, 
 213 
 
 Sponges, silica in, 65 
 
 Squirrel, native, bones of, found in cases, 
 339 
 
 Stalactite, an enormous, 324. Of the 
 second cavern at Mosquito Plains, 326 
 
 Stalactites, how formed, 348 
 
 Stalagmites, 323 
 
 St. Clair, Lake, 195. Description of, 199 
 
 Steam craters of voleanoes, 269 
 
 Stone Hut range of hills, shell deposits 
 on, 193 
 
 St. Paul, Island of, causes of the differ- 
 ence in the height on the eastern and 
 western sides, 241 
 
 Stratification, singular, of the coast at 
 Guichen Bay, 158. At Grant Bay, 
 154. No signs of stratification in 
 the sand dunes, 167 
 
 Sturt, Captain, his survey of the river 
 
 Murray, 104. His account of the 
 formation to the north, 112. His 
 observations on the extinct crater of 
 Mount Gambier, 227 
 
 Swamps of the South-Eastern District, 
 27. The Dismal Swamp, 27. Their 
 localities and peculiarities, 28. Fertile 
 ridges, 29. Swamps in the grassy 
 plains, 41. Peculiarities of swamps, 
 50. The fish Tap-lap, 50. The 
 cray-fish of the plains, 43, 51. Fresh- 
 water mollusca, 51. Two swamps re- 
 markable for their deposits, 53. Bones 
 on the banks, 54. Singular sounds 
 connected with the swamps which 
 have an underground drainage, 57. 
 The German Flat, 203. Black mud 
 swamp at the foot of Mount Graham, 
 210. Mosquito Swamp, 364 
 
 Swede’s Flat, probably some remains of 
 reefs at, 131. Description of the, 
 309 
 
 Subsidence of the limestone formation, 
 124, et seg. Subsidence coincident 
 with volcanic disturbance, 251, A 
 crater subsidence theory, 252 
 
 Superior, Lake, calcareous sandstone 
 near, 222 
 
 APLEY’S HILL, near Adelaide, for- 
 mation of, 208 
 Tatiara, probable remains of reefs in the, 
 131 
 
 Tasmania, mineral wealth of, 6. Fos- 
 siliferous limestone formation in, 122 
 
 Tea-tree (Melaleuca paludosa), 36, 222 
 
 Tennessee, mammoth caves of, 317 
 
 Terebratula compta, 74 
 
 Terraces, sea-beach, formation of, 215. 
 Levels of the, 218 
 
 Tertiary beds in the centre of Australia, 
 16,18. Tertiary formation and its 
 fossils, 60, et seg. Tertiary strata of 
 Rome, 87. Of Asia Minor, 88. 
 
 Tetratheca ciliata of the heath country, 
 37 
 
 Torrens, Lake, 110, 113, 117 
 
 Trap rock of part of the coast of Aus- 
 tralia, 18. Boulders of, in Grant 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Bay, 154. Trap rocks of the coast 
 of the Bay, 156. Amygdaloidal cha- 
 racter of the trap, 158. Trap rock 
 of Leake’s Bluff, 285. Trap rock 
 not always an indication of the exist- 
 ence of gold, 297. Causes of caves 
 in trap rock, 300 
 
 Trees, distribution of, in the South- 
 Eastern district, 49. Fossil, of the 
 crag, not trees, but magnesian lime- 
 stone infiltrations, 165—168. Trees 
 -buried in the sand, 221. Not fos- 
 silised, 222 
 
 Trochus, 77 
 
 Tunicata, fossil, found on the banks of 
 the Murray, 105 
 
 Turritella terebralis, 83 
 
 PHEAVAL of the Australian coast, 
 
 205. Singular instances within 
 
 the last few years, 207. Six periods 
 of rest in the upheaval, 215 
 
 ALLEY LAKE of Mount Gambier, 
 231. The crater walls surround- 
 
 ing the lake, 231. Mode of eruption 
 of the crater, 241. Subsidence co- 
 incident with volcanic disturbance at, 
 251 
 
 Van Diemen’s Gulf, 15 
 
 Vansittart’s Cave, 357. Wonderful 
 clearness of the water in, 357. No 
 bones perceptible at, 358. Fern-trees 
 at the entrance, 358 
 
 Vegetation of the South Australian 
 ridges, 30 
 
 Venus exalbata in the recent limestone, 
 190 
 
 Vesuvius, 
 272 
 
 Victoria, gold fields of, 4. Geological 
 government survey of, 7. Geological 
 results of the gold-digging in, 21. 
 {ts fossils agreeing with those of 
 Europe, 22. Coal beds of, 22. Boun- 
 dary line between, and South Aus- 
 
 bottom of the crater of, 
 
 403 
 
 tralia, 120. Immense voleanic district 
 of, 290. History of the formation in 
 which gold is found, 297 
 
 Vincent, Gulf St., 15, 111 
 
 Volcanoes, no active and few extinct, in 
 Australia, 224, 222. Description of 
 the extinct crater of Mount Gambier, 
 227, et seg. A theory of crater sub- 
 sidence, 252. Description of Mount 
 Shanck, 261, et seg. Dissimilarity 
 in voleanoes, 261. Reasons for mul- 
 tiplying the records of volcanic action, 
 262. Volcanic flora of Australia, 
 267. Volcanic bombs, 268. Craters 
 of steam and ashes by the sides of 
 volcanoes, 269. Appearances pre- 
 sented by the bottoms of the craters of 
 extinct and active volcanoes, 272. 
 Curious mode in which the lava stream 
 of Mount Shanck is heaped, 274. The 
 smaller volcanoes, 282. Crater lakes, 
 283, et seg. Connection which existed 
 between the volcanoes of the South- 
 Eastern District,288. Supposed causes 
 of volcanoes, 289. Igneous reservoirs, 
 290. Line of disturbance probably 
 connected with the Victoria volcanic 
 district, 290. Theory of the existence 
 of volcanoes in a recent tertiary period, 
 291. Evidence of subterranean vol- 
 canic action of Portland, 291. Law- 
 rence rock, 292. Julia Percy Island, 
 292. Evidence of periods of dis- 
 turbance and rest, 293. Von Buch’s 
 theory of craters of elevation, and the 
 controversy which resulted, 294 
 
 Volcanoes, extinct :— 
 
 Gambier, 63, 64, 72, 227, 290 
 
 Napier, 157 
 
 Rouse, 157 
 
 Shanck, 63, 250, 261, 365 
 
 smaller craters, 282 
 
 ALES, New South, gold-fields of, 
 5. Geological examination of, 7 
 Wannon river, evidence it affords of the 
 upheaval of the coast, 210 
 Water-level, facts with reference to the, 
 in South Australia, 179. 
 
 * 
 
404 INDEX. 
 
 Wellington Valley, Sir Thomas Mit- | ANTHORRHGA AUSTRALIS, 36, 
 chell’s deseription of the caves at, 140 
 quoted, 373. Professor Owen’s report 
 on the bones found in the caves, 378. 
 
 Wells, native, 63. Origin of the, 63, 64. 
 
 Well-shaped holes in the country be- 
 tween Mount Gambier and Mount 
 Shanck, 265 
 
 Wimmera river, 27 AMI, 139 
 
 Wombat bones in the swamps,55 Zoophytes, fossil, 77 
 
 ORKE’S PENINSULA, 15, 111. 
 Geological formation of, 17 
 Yorke, Cape, geological formation of, 17 
 
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