34 Hall, Some Notes on the Gippsland Lakes. [v^l xxxi 



the gravels is shown at Red Bluff, near the mouth ot Lake 

 Tyers. The cHffs here consist of yellow and gray sands crowded 

 with Araclmoidcs incisa, Tate, and are of Kalimnan (? Miocene) 

 age. The sandstones contain a few quartz pebbles, which form 

 intercalated sheets in the upper part of the cliff. The cUffs 

 at Jemmy's Point show similar features, but, as they are over- 

 grown by vegetation, they are not so convincing. The gravels 

 are doubtless redistributed in places, but the age of the sheet 

 capping the plateau appears clear, and they afford an inter- 

 esting parallel to the gravels and sands of similar age which 

 form a great part of the red beds near Melbourne. The 

 Bairnsdale gravels are not ferruginous, as Tertiary basalts are 

 practically absent from the district, and to these basalts is 

 probably due the iron of the red beds of central and western 

 Victoria. 



The entrance to the lakes from the sea has varied consider- 

 ably in position since it was first used by vessels. I was told 

 by an old settler at Lake Bunga that not fifty years ago the 

 entrance was bounded on its eastern side by the cliffs actually 

 at Red Bluff. The Lands Department map of the lakes 

 published in October, 1864, shows the opening close to Lake 

 Bunga, about half a mile from the Bluff. The map pubhshed 

 with Sir John Coode's report in December, 1879, shows the 

 entrance about one and a half miles east of the Lakes Entrance 

 Hotel, while the Admiralty chart (? iqoO) shows the entrance 

 at Lake Bunga. 



The long, narrow channel from near Metung, past Cunning- 

 hame, and so to Lake Bunga, is marked on the older maps as 

 Reeves River ; but with the artificial opening at Cunning- 

 hame this name has been restricted, and the eastern sweejD 

 is now known as the Cunninghame Arm. 



There is now no trace of a channel eastward from the Lakes 

 Entrance Hotel, the sand having drifted in and completely 

 obliterated it. The history of this eastern end of the lakes 

 is of interest, as we have historical evidence to confirm the 

 interpretation that a geologist would put upon the features 

 of the country. I am not prepared to discuss the origin of the 

 gulf in which the Balcombian and Kalimnan deposits were 

 laid down, nor of the later gulf liounded by these deposits which 

 now forms the lakes. It is quite clear that the drifting sand 

 which has cut off the gulf from the sea and so formed the 

 lakes is geologically a recent deposit. The Ninety-Mile Beach 

 is the straightest and most featureless coast-line that we have, 

 whereas the older rocks which it has cut off from the sea formed 

 a very irregular coast. It is clear from this that some remark- 

 able change must have taken place in the action of the sea in 

 the neighbourhood. Instead of cutting back into the land, 

 it is heaping up deposits of sand along the shore, and the land 



