TOPOGRAPHY OF VICTORIA, 377 



cliffs as present themselves, and the mesozoic sandstone finally disappears. At Point 

 Ronald the River Gellibrand empties its waters into the Pacific ; the coast is generally 

 depressed, and the only indentation of any importance is the estuary known as Curdie's 

 Inlet, which receives a river of the same name, both of them deriving their appellation 

 from an early settler. Just beyond this inlet is the Bay of Martyrs, with which 

 tradition associates the murder of several white people by the natives. 



The only conspicuous landmarks which attract the eye as the voyager skirts the 

 coast are Flaxman's Hill and Point Buttress. Just before reaching the flourishing sea- 

 port town of Warrnambool, is perceived the outfall of the Hopkins River, which, taking 

 its rise in the Great Dividing Range, a hundred miles distant as the crow flies, 

 absorbs an immense number of affluents in its tortuous course. The coast curves round 

 somewhat at Warrnambool and thus forms a pretty bay, and a breakwater is in course 

 of construction which will shelter it from the violence of the south-westerly gales and seas. 



From a geological point of view, the whole of the coast from this point westward 

 as far as the emboiiclmre of the Shaw and Eumeralla Rivers at Yambuk, a distance of 

 something like forty miles, is highly interesting, because over the whole of this tract of 

 country a stream of lava must have flowed, projected from the then active volcano of 

 Mount Rouse, thirty-six miles inland. Belfast, or Port Fairy, as it was formerly called, 

 which lies midway between these points, was formed of basalt thus ejected ; while the 

 indurated tufas of Tower Hill, in its immediate neighbourhood, are found to have been 

 originally composed of ashes, red-hot stone of a vitreous structure, dust and vapour. 



Three distinct coast-lines are traceable hereabouts, with limestone bluffs running from 

 east to west for a distance of six or seven miles, while in a marshy flat on the right 

 bank of the River Moyne, which flows into the sea at Belfast, shafts, which have been 

 sunk for wells, have bottomed on the original sea-bed, plentifully strewn with shells. 

 Two small islands guard the entrance to the harbour, and just behind the town the 

 waters of the Moyne, after having formed the Tower Hill Swamp, expand into a lagoon 

 somewhat resembling a boomerang in shape. 



Five miles westward is the entrance of Portland Bay, the scene of the earliest 

 settlement in Victoria, although long before the landing of the Hentys it had been 

 often visited by ships engaged in the capture of whales ; and it is remarkable that the 

 contour of the Bay strikingly resembles that of the head and shoulders of one of these 

 leviathans of the deep, with its nose resting on what is known as Whaler Point. Sixty 

 or seventy years ago "schools" of these sociable creatures used to visit Portland Bay 

 at certain periods of the year, and as this was soon discovered by the hardy adven- 

 turers engaged in their pursuit, the place was selected as a whaling-station, and at 

 various " points of vantage " lookouts were established ; one of these, as Mr. Richmond 

 Henty tells us, having been stationed at the Light-house Point, another at the Whalers' 

 Bluff, and a third at a spot seven miles north from Portland known as the " Convincing 

 Ground." The writer who has just been quoted states that he has seen as many as 

 thirty whales at a time spouting in the waters of the Bay, and " rubbing their huge 

 bodies on the sandy bottom in order to clear away the barnacles which clung to them." 



To-day the whales have pretty well disappeared from this part of the coast, and 

 instead of nineteen or twenty per annum being captured as when the Hentys reaped 



