362 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION E. 



of Mounts Hotham and Feathertop; below it, the main stream winds 

 through alluvial flats which vary from one to two miles in width. 

 The boundary ridges form steep sidelings rising suddenly from the 

 flats. 



The Kiewa rises at Mount Hotham (Diamantina spring),* 

 and draining the eastern slopes of Mount Feathertop, and the 

 western slopes of the Bogong High Plains, its upper affluents form a 

 series of cataracts, where the source runnells fall rapidly away 

 from the table lands. Huge boulders occupy the valley, many 

 of them shewing evidences of glacier transportation. 



Below the Mountain Creek settlements at the base of Mount 

 Bogong, wherein the Mountain Creek heaped up masses of 

 morainic debris occur, the valley widens and the hills undulate, 

 and tine alluvial flats, from one to two miles in width, bounded by 

 extensive terrace deposits are found. The latter present indis- 

 putable evidences of the wide spread deposition of materials 

 during the pluviatile period which succeeded the breaking up of 

 the glaciers occupying the higher valleys of the Australian Alps 

 since Miocene times. 



The source affluents of the Mitta Mitta comprise the follow- 

 ing : — The Cobvingra, Bundarrah, Wombat Creek, and Big River, 

 on the west ; the Victoria and Livingstone Ci'eek on the south ; 

 and the Benambra Creek, and Gibbo and Dark Rivers, on the east. 



Owing to the western affluents draining the Bogong High Plains, 

 and to the general altitude of the western watershed line, the 

 volume of water brought down by these affluents constitute the 

 source supply of the Mitta Mitta. As an instance of the 

 effect which such higher plateaux have in regard to the collect- 

 ing capacity of a source basin, it is interesting to note that, 

 although the Victoria River only drains an area of about eighty- 

 one square miles, while the Livingstone Creek drains an area of 

 one hundred and thirty-eight square miles, yet the former 

 empties almost as great a volume of water into its recipient, 

 the Cobungra, as the latter does into its recipient, the 

 main Mitta Mitta River. The Victoria rises in the Paw Paw 

 Plains table-land, 5,000 feet above sea level, while the highest 

 point drained by the Livingstone Creek, hardly exceeds 4,000 feet. 



The general configuration of the minor watershed lines dividing 

 the western affluents, is that of gradually sloping terraces and 

 shelves, open grassy flats, with thickly timbered rises, occasionally 

 rocky. The steepest slopes prevail on the southern sides of the 

 watershed lines, being frequently precipitous. The southern 

 affluents, the Livingstone Creek and Victoria River, are pai^tly 

 encircled by the Main Dividing Range, the character of the 

 country along the courses being much more open and undulating 

 than the principal tracts of country intersected by the western 



* R. B. Smythe and O. S. Skene, The Physical Resources of North Gippsland. 



