374 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



light-house occupying a commanding position for the guidance of vessels voyaging from 

 the eastward, the westward, or the southward and the romantic mass of basalt, deeply 

 coloured by olivine and augite, known as the Pulpit Rock, lifting its rugged form above 

 the angry waters which always surge, and sometimes furiously rave, about its base. 

 From Cape Schank the coast is deflected obliquely, and almost in a straight line, to the 

 north-west. It consists for the most part of sand hummocks and dunes. These are 

 found on examination to be largely composed of pulverized shells, sponge-sptcula, poly:.oa, 

 formanifcra, and spines of the echini, thrown up and triturated apparently by the action 

 of the " hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts," under the strong compulsion of the 

 south-westerly gales, which prevail in this region at certain seasons of the year. 



Point Nepean and Point Lonsdale mark the entrance to Port Phillip Heads, passing 

 which the coast-line curves round in a westerly direction to the Banvon Heads, where 

 the boldly projecting headland designated Point Flinders serves as a breakwater to 

 shelter the entrance to Lake Connewarre, into which are poured the waters of the 

 Banvon. Thence the coast trends continually downwards towards the south-west, until it 

 reaches its most southerly point in this part of Victoria at Cape Otway. In the interval 

 something like a hundred creeks discharge their currents into the sea, and the scenery 

 on shore assumes a character of remarkable grandeur and beauty after passing the village 

 of Puebla. For a distance of sixty miles the land-wall is composed of carbonaceous 

 mesozoic rocks, upwards of three hundred feet in thickness, exposed in almost continuous 

 sections as far as Stony Creek, and obtaining in one place the grim appellation of the 

 Demon's Bluff. They are geologically interesting, because, according to the report of 

 Mr. P. M. Krause, who was one of the first to explore the district in 1873, the range 

 which now forms the water-shed between the Barwon and Gellibrand Rivers, " was in 

 tertiary times an island about seventy miles long in a south-westerly direction, and from 

 ten to sixteen miles in breadth, with a chain of hills upwards of one thousand feet in 

 height." So rugged is the coast, that from Barwon Heads to Cape Otway there are 

 only two places at which it is possible to effect a landing, namely, Loutit Bay and 

 Apollo Bay, and neither of these is easily accessible when a south-westerly wind is 

 blowing. The ranges, which run inland for a distance of upwards of twenty miles in a 

 northerly direction from Apollo Bay, and reach their culminating point at Mount Sabine, 

 one thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight feet above the sea-level, are densely wooded: 

 on the tertiary slopes honeysuckle scrub, the grass-tree and the ti-tree are found to 

 prevail ; the stringy-bark predominates on the lower spurs, while the iron-bark flourishes 

 at a loftier elevation ; near the corner of the range, messmate and blue-gum rise out of 

 a thick undergrowth of shrubs and creepers ; in the valleys the vegetation is luxuriant 

 in the extreme, the blue-gum, the beech and the black-wood being intermingled with the 

 tree-fern, so that the finest foliage of the Australian forest is here combined and 

 contrasted with an enchanting effect. Owing to the number of springs which issue from 

 the northern slopes of the range, and the moisture of the atmosphere, the tree-ferns not 

 merely abound in their natural habitat among the damp valleys, but climb to the summit 

 of the secondary spurs, and crown them with their graceful plumes. The light-house at 

 Cape Otway is admirably placed at the western extremity of an imposing headland about 

 three miles in width, if measured from Point Flinders to Point Franklin ; the land 



