BASS STRAIT.— DANNEVIQ. 347 



VIII.— BASS SIR AIT. 



The depression of the Continent, of which evidence has here 

 been suggested, extends southwards, and accounts for the 

 existence of Bass Strait. That Tasmania at one period was 

 connected with the Australian coast appears now to be fully 

 acknowledged, for the evidence in support thereof has 

 gradually become so overwhelming as to leave no room for 

 doubt. 



Serious consideration of this matter was probably in the 

 first instance prompted by the difficulty of explaining the 

 presence of the Aborigines in Tasmania from the circumstance 

 that these people were exceedingly primitive, and not 

 possessed of any apparent knowledge of boat construction. 



In 1890 Mr. A. H. Lucas, before the Australasian Associa- 

 tion for the Advancement of Science, drew attention to the 

 fact that in Victoria there is considerable dissimilarity between 

 the fauna north and south of the dividing range ; while in 

 1892 Prof. W. Baldwin Spencer recogni.sed not only the im- 

 portance and validity of this demarcation, but also pointed 

 out that between the southern Victorian fauna and that of 

 Tasmania there is in many instances a very striking 

 similarity.! 



(Geological evidence, pointing in thi-; direclion, has from 

 time to time been furnished by various writers. Dr. A. W. 

 Howitt, amongst others, dealt fully AA'ith the matter in 1898, 

 and demonstrated that southern Victoria has suffered a 

 depression of at least two hundred and seventy feet within 

 recent geological times, and similar conclusions have been 

 arrived at in regard to the north coast of Tasmania. The 

 depression indicated was suggested to be slightly greater 

 than the present depth of Bass Strait, and the sea must, 

 under these conditions, have been excluded from the present 

 Bass Strait area. Howitt also published a contour nuip 

 showing the 50 fathom line and the 100 fathom line as 

 suggested by the present Admiralty Chart, and he indicated 

 the approximate appearance of Southern 'V'ictoria \\ith 

 Tasmania connected. In this plan he indicated a line 

 running from Wilson Promontory across the eastern islands 

 to the north-east corner of Tasmania as the shallowest 

 continuous section (not more than 32 fathoms), and in further 

 discussion he also suggests that the indentation betAveen Cape 

 Otway and King Island represents the locality where rivers 

 would have formerly discharged into the ocean. My own 



1. The author did not add the bibliographical references to this, perhaps 

 after all. incomplete draft. The references to the literature of this subject 

 placed at the end have been supplied by Mr. C. Hedle^- — Editor. 



