Oct., 1907.] THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 97 



BUG HAN AND ITS CAVES. 



By Messrs. T. S. Hall, J. H. Harvey, and W. Thorn. 



{Read be/ore the Field Naturalists^ Chib of Victoria, 12th August, 1907.) 



Part I. — A Visit to Buchan. By T. S. Hall, M.A. 



Early in December last I had an opportunity of visiting Buchan, 

 a place that I had long wanted to see, as it is of great geological 

 interest. The first day began with a railway journey of 170 

 miles to Bairnsdale, which was reached about the middle of the 

 afternoon. At four o'clock the coach journey was begun, the 

 first stage ending at Bruthen, where we arrived about eight 

 o'clock, and before darkness had closed in. 



Bairnsdale is only a few feet above sea-level, the steamers 

 coming up to it from the Lakes. The Mitchell River is a fine, 

 deep stream, and occupies a wide valley. Soon after crossing 

 the river we climbed a long hill on to the extensive plateau which 

 flanks the mountains to the north, and which had been in part 

 traversed on the railway journey. It is built of great sheets of 

 sands, gravels, and coarse conglomerates, which have been 

 spread out by the rivers and streams partly on the Ordovician 

 bedrock and partly on newer formations, such as the marine 

 tertiaries. Between Bairnsdale and Bruthen the level of the 

 plateau is about 500 feet above sea-level. It is deeply trenched 

 by the valleys of the Mitchell, Nicholson, and Tambo, and the 

 rich flats are extensively cultivated, maize being the principal 

 crop. 



At Bruthen the Tambo leaves the hills by a narrow gorge, and 

 enters the wide flood plain which reaches down to the sea. 

 Small steamers ply from Mossiface, a couple of miles down 

 stream, to Bairnsdale, but cannot come up to Bruthen itself. The 

 night was spent at Bruthen, and a start was made next morning 

 at six o'clock. A bridge, 150 yards long, crosses the sandy bed 

 of the Tambo, and on leaving this we immediately begin to climb 

 once more on to the plateau. For the next four hours the drive 

 was monotonous. The sandy and gravelly soil bore a fairly thick 

 forest of stringy-bark, and the country reminded me of the 

 Heytesbury Forest. 



A stop was made at the Tara Hotel, on Boggy Creek, for 

 breakfast. The name, taken from the Tara Range, which runs 

 north from Nowa Nowa, is aboriginal, and not Irish, as might be 

 supposed. The road now turned northerly, and traversed alluvial 

 sands and quartz porphyries. The soil was poor, and the timber 

 chiefly stunted stringy-bark. Here and there were marshy flats 

 with reeds and rushes, and again we crossed a level patch 

 covered with the two species of grass-tree. On some of the flats 

 there was a glorious blaze of crimson bottle-brush. By the 

 roadside could be seen the purple and white violet, a purple 



