Geology of the Lower Mitchell River. 19 



some thirty feet deep, through the morass, or, as it may more 

 properly be called, peat bog, and it has since slowly drained. 

 The surface has, in consequence, become cracked and fissured in 

 all directions, and a subsidence of several feet has taken place. 

 Fires lit on it have burnt in all weathers for years. After 

 burning, the ash, incorpoi'ated with the peaty material below, 

 forms a fair soil. The whole of this peat morass appears to 

 have resulted from the decay of small vegetation, as it contains 

 no timber of any size. 



The limestone beds can be traced for a few hundred yards 

 above Mr. Hope's house on the eastern side and also on the 

 opposite bank, but higher up still only the sandy drifts appear. 

 The morass empties itself into the Backwater, a channel of the 

 Mitchell, which flows southward for about a mile between well 

 defined limestone rises, then turns eastward along the limestone 

 cliffs on the northern bank of the Mitchell, and finally joins the 

 main stream near the Bairnsdale bridge. 



From (ilenaladale until just below the Lindenovv bridge, the 

 vertical sections exposed on the northern banks, show sandstone 

 and massive conglomerate beds, which rise into rounded hills of 

 devonian sandstones. The inver flats thus lie for this distance 

 between tertiary and devonian strata. The latter probably occur 

 at no great depth below the Woodlands and Glenaladale proper- 

 ties ; indeed, only a few yards above the Lindenow bridge, 

 devonian sandstone outcrops on the flat itself. 



A short distance below this pdint. Flaggy Creek enters the 

 river and has exposed a fine section known as Saunders' Bluff, 

 which will be fully described later on. Another small stream 

 comes in about half a mile lower down, and has cut through a 

 heavy cemented compact gravel wash which reappears as far 

 down as Skinner's. About a mile below Saunders' Bluff there is 

 a fossiliferous section which continues for a few hundred yards, 

 and terminates at Skinner's, the best known collecting ground 

 for eocene fossils on the river. At the base of this section are the 

 calcareous beds, which are overlain by a yellow, soft fossiliferous 

 ironstone, and this in turn is covered with sandy drift and 

 occasional ironstone boulders. Below Skinner's, only rounded 

 hills of the ironstone deposit are observed until the Manaro 

 crossing or Wuk Wuk village settlement is r(;ached. Here 



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