Geology of the Lower Mitchell River. 45 



XIII. — Summary and Conclusion. 



1. The western boundary of the Gippsland miocene is extended 

 at least as far as Bellevue and Rose Hill. Its exact limits in 

 that direction are not determined, but farther up the river every 

 section examined discloses only a lower tertiary fauna. The 

 highest level at which miocene fossils are recorded in the area is 

 at Knight's, and about 160 feet above sea level. At the mouth 

 of Boggy Creek the river cliff is 194 feet above level, and the 

 eocene strata are continuous up to its summit. Farther west the 

 country still rises, and just beyond Boggy Creek reaches 230 feet,. 

 and finally at Moitun Creek 330 feet above datum line. Iron- 

 stone blocks, containing eocene fossils, were traced up to an 

 elevation of about 160 feet in both these localities. 



2. Since we dissent from Sir F. McCoy's classification of the 

 Moitun and Boggy Creek ironstones as upper miocene or lower 

 pliocene, we cannot accept the theory, apparently founded upon 

 it by Mr. Howitt, viz., that the Bairnsdale limestone is denuded 

 on its north limit and overlain by the Moitun Creek group (1). 

 Professor McCoy determined the age of this group on palaeon- 

 tological data, but the Report (1) contains no list of the species 

 submitted to him. As a fact, a reliable cla.ssifi cation of the 

 Mitchell beds was scarcely possible at the date of the Report 

 (1874). Compai-atively few species were known from the 

 Victorian tertiaries generally, while the molluscan bed at the 

 base of the Skinner's section was then practically unworked. 

 The latter of course supplies the key for the interpretation of the 

 Moitun and Boggy Creek casts. 



Again, from Lindenow up to Moitun Creek, the Bairn.sdale 

 limestone is entiiely wanting, and the river banks show instead, 

 on the south, ferruginous sands resting directly upon devonian 

 strata, and on the north, the latter rocks only. 



From Bellevue eastward there is, on the contrary, evidence of 

 the ero.sion of the limestone before the deposition upon it of the 

 so-called upper pliocene (really miocene) beds, and to this extent 

 we are in accord with Mr. Howitt. 



The following table shews the classification of the Mitchell 

 tertiaries as given in the Reports (1 and 2), and by ourselves in 

 the present paper. 



