222 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



taining small cubic crystals of pyrite may be noted as probably a 

 dykestone of some kind, but none of this material was visible in 

 situ. Turton's Creek is, I believe, about the nearest locality 

 from which Silurian fossils have been obtained to fix the horizon 

 of these beds. 



Tertiary. — In the neighbourhood of Foster there is a fairly 

 heavy white quartz gravel and conglomerate, as at New Zealand 

 Hill, Kaffir Hill, and Cement Hill, which is characterized by 

 being almost entirely siliceous, even to the finer material holding 

 the coarser together. Towards the base of this deposit there is a 

 considerable amount of drift lignite, but no identifiable plants or 

 fruits were collected. This deposit is also auriferous, and was 

 considerably worked at one time as the Stockyard Creek diggings. 

 Mr. R. A. F. Murray, in his report, refers to the deposit as Older 

 Pliocene, but there is no conclusive evidence as to the correct 

 horizon for these deposits. 



Pleistocene. — The older dune limestone forming the base of 

 the present dunes along the coast northwards from the mouth of 

 the Derby River, may best be referred to under this head. On 

 the Admiralty chart, opposite Shellback Island and on the main- 

 land, a note may be read — " Low red cliffs," which evidently 

 refers to the dune-rock, and one can only conclude that this 

 deposit must have been casually examined from the sea, whence 

 in certain lighting this view might hold. Everyone is, however, 

 now pretty familiar with the fawn or yellowish appearance of 

 these rocks, as at the Back Beach, Sorrento, and their cementing 

 with carbonate of lime is also well known. Here also, as is 

 usually the case with this rock, some fine examples of current 

 bedding may be seen, but another feature which is not often 

 present is the very fine platy layers firmly cemented together 

 occurring for some distance along the coast north of the Derby 

 River mouth. Some of these layers were only the thickness of 

 ordinary cardboard, yet they were strong enough to resist hand 

 breakage. The usual rugged character and fantastic weathering 

 is also present. 



Recent. — That the upper portions of this deposit are of no 

 great antiquity is clearly shown by an old sandy soil layer, 

 containing recent terrestrial and freshwater shells, including a 

 small Endodonta, Bulimis tenuistriatus, Bulinus 2^^'oductus, 

 Succinea australis, and Vitrina verreauxi. 



There is some dune rock over this layer, which points to the 

 probability that the whole deposit might perhaps be regarded as 

 recent, as well as the present loose shifting dunes. Some very 

 fine examples of sand volcanoes were seen amongst the dunes on 

 the day of our passage across the Corner Basin. Good accumu- 

 lations of shells, flints, bones, &c., and a few stone axes and 

 grinding stones, were noted as relics from the aborigines, mostly 

 on the dunes. 



