338 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION C. 



portion of the Dandenong Ranges are the frequent landslips 

 that have taken place there. These ranges run j\.E, and 

 S.W., but at the south-west end turn up towards the N. W. 

 Landslips are by no means uncommon in this district, 

 traces of them can be seen all along the mountain's side 

 for about five miles in a north-east and south-west line. A 

 little to the west of the present slip one of nearly equal mag- 

 nitude took place in the year 1863, at which time various 

 minor slips were also formed, including one which has lately 

 developed into the largest of the season. When seen from 

 a distance the main slip looks larger than it really is, as one 

 cannot distinguish readily the talus from the slip proper, the 

 whole forming a brick-red coloured blot on the mountain 

 side, looking like a large ploughed field. 



On each side of the house occupied by Mr. Sydney Ellery 

 runs a creek : these are tributaries of the Olinda Creek, and 

 have their sources in springs on the side of the mountain. 

 On Sunday, 12th July, about 1'30 p.m., these creeks, which had 

 been gradually increasing in volume and turbidness for some 

 days, suddenly burst their bounds and came roaring down like 

 a river in flood, spreading out four hundred and seventy feet 

 in width. This continued for some three hours, when the 

 main slip suddenly took place (preceded by a rumbling noise), 

 which shifted nearly an acre of land in area, and a volume 

 equal to thirty-five thousand cubic yards, leaving a fall eighty 

 feet deep. The upper part of this slip is five hundred feet 

 above the creek below, and is more than half way up the 

 ridge on which it is situated. The debris rushed down the 

 side of the hill, which lies at an angle of thirty degrees, across 

 the creek, up a neighbouring spur in a north-west direction 

 for two hundred and fifty feet in horizontal length and thirty 

 feet vertical height, with such force that blocks of stone 

 weighing over a hundredweight were carried up. The impetus 

 being thus checked, the slurry was then diverted in a 

 northerly direction back again into the creek, but this being 

 soon choked up with dtbris, a fresh course was carved out by 

 the moving mass. Large stringy-bark trees, broken off" 

 short, were spread like spillekins about the ground, and large 

 boulders were hurled along, carrying away fences in their 

 course ; the combined forces of the debris throwing themselves 

 against the dwelling-house of Mrs. Heutell, raised it from 

 the ground, the sticks and stones covering acres of good land. 



The landslips that have taken place here may be classified 

 into deep-seated and surface slips, and the latter into those 



