April 23, I860.] UP THE DARLING AND BARWAN RIVERS. 95 



rounded hillocks. In all tertiary and in most secondary formations water was 

 to be got by digging, and these hillocks reminded him of similar hillocks in 

 Syria, which were evidently craters of extinct volcanoes, and which nature had 

 turned into Artesian wells. The paucity of natives seen by the Governor was a 

 remarkable circumstance, and one did not know how to account for it. Probably 

 they were to be found congregated round the inland sea. In connection with 

 the general subject, he had recently seen the interesting journal of Mr. Selwyn, 

 the Government geologist of Victoria, in which he described the geological forma- 

 tion of Southern Australia and also the beauty of the scenery. There was not 

 a more beautiful country in the world. The mountains were massed together 

 and rose in a most picturesque manner to heights varying from 2000 to 3000 

 feet, indented by beautiful valleys and ravines. The mountains were covered 

 to their very summits with magnificent stringy-bark forests, and the bases were 

 covered with forests of the gum-tree — trees as large as any in our parks, filled 

 with kangaroos and emus, and birds of the strange Australian character ; alto- 

 gether presenting a country in which, in travelling through it, you were more 

 constantly than in any country, almost, inclined to say, " I should like to build 

 a house there." Then, this beautiful scenery was connected with a beautiful 

 climate. The heat was great in summer, but there was nothing oppressive in 

 it. There was a large amount of ozone in the atmosphere. Even the marshes 

 on the banks of the Murray were not unhealthy : surveying parties had lived 

 by them for six and eight months together. Captain Pullen, of the Cyclops^ 

 was in the Murray reed-beds for nine and twelve months together without a 

 single case of fever in his party. Here, then, was a country to which we might 

 turn our eyes with satisfaction, and be delighted to fill it up with the surplus 

 of our population ; and he rejoiced that it was in the mind of the Governor and 

 of many others to explore the interior and extend our knowledge of this beau- 

 tiful country more and more until the whole should become a magnificent rest 

 for civilised man. 



The Chairman said, that in the communication which had been made by the 

 Governor there had been so many references not only to the physical geography 

 of the country, but to its geological structure, and they had been so particularly 

 asked by the Governor to give some geological explanation of the origin of 

 fresh-water springs, which occurred as oases at great distances from each other 

 in this vast country, and by which springs alone we could hope to obtain com- 

 munication with the northern portions of the continent, that he hoped his friend 

 Mr. Jukes, who had been many years in the country, and for whose geological 

 accomplishments he would answer, would state his ideas as to the origin of 

 these fresh- water springs, and give a general view of the physical geology and 

 saline deposits of that great country. 



Mb. J. Beete Jukes said he would endeavour to give a slight general sketch 

 of the geology of the country, as far as he knew it, and then endeavour to say 

 something about the question of water-supply. The eastern coast chain 

 was entirely composed of palasozoic rocks. No part of this chain south of 

 Cape Melville was less than 2000 feet above the level of the sea, and there 

 were ridges that rose occasionally to 4000 feet, and in the Australian Alps 

 to within nearly 7000 feet. Again, the minor ranges that ran north and 

 south through Victoria were in the same way composed of palaeozoic rocks. 

 The same was true of the north and south ridges which stretched from 

 Western Australia, in the neighbourhood of King George's Sound up to the 

 North- West Cape. With respect to the east and west ranges south of Port 

 Essington, and which struck the coast about Cumberland Inlet, he believed 

 they were also composed of paleozoic rocks. Certainly there was granite there 

 in considerable masses, for Leichhardt mentioned the fact in his book. All the 

 high grounds of Australia consisted of these older aqueous and igneous rocks. 

 Now for the flat country : according to Eyre, all the way from South Australia 

 to Western Australia there was an unbroken range of cliff, varying from 200 to 



I 2 



