56 Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria. 



"This" {i.e., 'post pliocene formation' H. and P !) is of no very 

 great extent until we get to Warrnambool, which town is built 

 on it. . . . South of a line drawn about a mile and 

 three-quarters up the Parker River to a point about three- 

 quarters of a mile up the Aire River, and the piece of land 

 between that portion of the Aire Marsh through which the 

 Ford River runs, and the coast as far west as Castle Cove, 

 may be taken as the extent of this deposit at Cape Otway." 

 Further particulars are given of the deposit as far west as 

 Warrnambool, and for these as well as for remarks on the 

 estuary deposits and sand dunes of the coast, reference must be 

 made to his report. 



SUMMARY. 



The eocene beds of the Aire and Cape Otway occupy a small 

 triangular area of about six square miles. For the greater part 

 of their extent they are hidden by more recent deposits, which 

 for the most part consist of estuarine or seolian beds so that the 

 only outcrops are on the shore line or along the hills which 

 bound the Aire Marsh. On their east and north-west bordei'S 

 they are hemmed in by the fresh-water mesozoic rocks of the 

 Cape Otway series, which rise high above them as lofty hills, so 

 that they perhaps owe their present position to faulting. The 

 beds on the shore line near Cape Flinders, which are generally 

 spoken of as the Cape Otway beds, and those in the neighbour- 

 hood of Castle Cove are older than those bordering on the Aire 

 Marsh, the faunas of the two being in strong contrast. The 

 occurrence of these two faunas so close together in the same 

 neighbourhood shows that the differences between them are not 

 due, as has been suggested, to geographical position, while as the 

 lithological characters of the deposits show no striking contrasts, 

 it cannot be that these ditierences are due to bathynietrical 

 conditions. It follows then that the ditFerences are dependent 

 on difference in age, a point on which we have always insisted in 

 our discussions on the sequence of our eocene strata. The 

 disturbed condition of the deposits in the neighbourhood of 

 Castle Cove, with their high dip and varying strike, possibly 

 aftbrds evidence that they underlie the horizontal beds displayed 

 in the river sections, and if so this evidence is in accord with 



