360 PROCEEDINGS OP SECTION E. 



continued sub-aerial denudation had sculptured the upturned 

 Silurian and Devonian systems into mountain and valley dui'ing 

 the period when the ranges forming thehiglier elevations of mucli 

 of the European Alps were being deposited on the sea floor as fine 

 and coarse sediment. The Mesozoic formations are entirely absent 

 in the Australian Alps. 



Although locally deflected round the Livingstone Creek sources 

 from Mount Hotham, the Main Dividing Kange trends north- 

 easterly from Mount Howitt at its western, to Mount Kosciusko 

 at its eastern extremity. It presents a diversity of surface 

 contour, rising into coned peaks at the Twins, 5,575 feet; into a 

 rounded height at Mount Hotham, 6,100 feet; spreading into minor 

 table-lands at the Paw Paw and Ormpin Plains, 4,000 to 4,500 

 feet; falling in low gaps as Tongio Gap, 2,600 feet (which afford the 

 readiest access from the northern areas to the coast region) ; rising 

 into escarped peaks, as Mount Tambo, 4,700 feet ; into rugged 

 terraced mountains like the Cobberas, 6,025 feet ; to another coned 

 peak. Mount Pilot, 6,020 feet ; and finally culminating in a series 

 of elevations at the Kosciusko plateau, 7,256 feet above sea 

 level — the highest altitudes in all Australia. 



The contours of the natural watershed lines dividing the prin- 

 cipal streams, as the Ovens, Kiewa, Mitta Mitta, and Hume, 

 flowing northerly into the Murray ; and the Mitchell, Tambo, 

 and Snowy Rivers flowing southerly into the Gippsland Lakes 

 and Southern Ocean, are also extremely varied, as on these the 

 loftiest plateaux occur — notably the Bogong High Plains to the 

 north, and the Snowy, Dargo, and Nuninyong plateaux to the 

 south. 



Starting from the western extremity of the area at Mount 

 Howitt we find the watershed line between the Mitchell and 

 Macalister Rivers traversing an elevated table-land — the Snowy 

 High Plains, at an altitude of 5,000 feet — and connected further 

 south by a I'idge with Mount Wellington, near which has recently 

 been discovered a morainic lake, and from the summit of which a 

 magnificent view of the lacustrine area of Gippsland is obtained. 



Further to the eastward a ridge proceeds from Mount Selwyn 

 in a northerly direction between the Buckland and Buftalo Rivers 

 (both tributaries of the Ovens), and rises to the bold Buffalo 

 Mountains. 



From Mount Hotham, still further east, several main watershed 

 lines radiate. One narrow and serrated ridge proceeding northerly 

 between the Ovens and Kiewa Rivers culminates some seven 

 miles distant in Mount Feathertop, 6,303 feet. Another, bearing 

 north-easterly, and dividing the Kiewa and western tributaries of 

 the Mitta (as the Cobungra, Bundarrah, Big River, and Snowy 

 Creek) rises within three miles of Mount Hotham to a rounded 

 peak. Mount Lock, 6,175 feet, falls away to a low gap at the head 

 of the Cobungra River, 4,000 feet ; then rises to the Bogong high 



