Art. XV. — Notes on the Marine Rocks underlying 

 Warrnamhool. 



(With Two Diagrams.) 



By G. S. Griffiths, F.G.S. 



[Eeal August 14, 1890.] 



The Borough Council of Warrnambool has recently bored 

 for fresh water in the locality known as Albert Park, one 

 and a half miles from the beach,. 1 60 feet above sea level, 

 and on the north east side of the town. The work was 

 carried out under the supervision of Mr. Richard Bennett, 

 the originator of the scheme, as I am given to understand. 



The core brought up discloses an interesting series of 

 sedimentary beds, which ap}>ear to have been laid down on 

 a sea bottom, when this locality formed portion of an arm of 

 the sea which extended from West to East, between the 

 Otway Ranges and the Main Dividing Range. In early 

 Tertiary times, Australia was elevated considerably, and the 

 Secondaiy beds were greatly eroded in the area indicated. 

 With the close of the Eocene, there was a great depression of 

 the surface, and the Jurassic beds of the Otway were cut oft 

 from the same rocks of the flanks of the Main Dividing Range 

 by a broad strait. Into this strait, the watercourses opening on 

 its coast-lines brought down sand and mud, clay and chalky 

 ooze, and these were outspread in wide thin beds. To these 

 deposits, coral seems to have been added, for the waters, 

 according to Professor Duncan, were warmer than those of 

 the present seas, judging by the organic remains. These 

 beds were subsequently raised above the sea level, and the 

 Warrnambool bore penetrates the latest deposited, or upper- 

 most of them, to a depth of about 400 feet. What may be 

 the total thickness of these sediments hereabouts, cannot be 

 stated, as there is no indication of proximity to any bottom 

 in the bed of gault in which the boring rod broke ; but in 

 another part of this old strait, viz, at Winchelsea, a bore has 



