3 88 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 







to six thousand feet above the sea-level, and smaller ones which do not attain more 

 than half that elevation. " The highest peaks consist of the palaeozoic rocks, which are 

 also plainly exposed in all the deeper rivers and creeks that intersect the plateaux and 

 separate them from one another. These water-courses contain drifts and gravels of post 

 tertiary age, made up of the materials denuded from the bed-rock, the middle tertiary 

 beds and the basalts. 



"The geological history of the district, deduced from the above data, is that in 

 middle tertiary times the beds of the water-courses were at a far higher relative eleva- 

 tion than those of the present day ; that flows of lava took place which filled in the 

 valleys of the period; and that the present rivers then commenced to cut their way, 

 and have, during long ages, eroded their valleys as they now exist, sometimes parallel 

 with, and sometimes across, the ancient river-beds." There is every reason to believe that 

 the flow of lava from the active volcanoes of a remote epoch was confined to the 

 narrow valleys, which are so characteristic of this romantic region. These are, in some 

 instances, not more than a mile and rarely more than two miles wide, measuring from 

 ridge to ridge of the ranges by which they are flanked. 



This is the case with the hollow, lying between the parallel spurs that resemble in 

 shape the prongs of a tuning-fork, thrown out from Mount Cobbler (five thousand three 

 hundred and forty-two feet), and running in a straight line clue north for a distance of 

 sixteen miles. Each depression is the bed of a creek or river flowing down its centre, 

 and fed by a hundred tributaries taking their rise in the wooded heights above. Such 

 are the sources of the streams which empty themselves directly into the Pacific, or 

 discharge their waters into the Gippsland Lakes, on the one side of the Great Divide, 

 or contribute to swell the volume of the Murray, by means of the Mitta Mitta, the 

 Ovens and the Goulburn, on the other. 



Another striking bifurcation occurs at Mount St. Bernard, which is the diverging 

 point of two important ranges, both taking a northerly direction, the shorter offset 

 trending somewhat to the westward for eight miles, until it reaches Growler's Hill, when 

 it again divides and throws out two branches, each of them terminating about twelve 

 miles from its starting-point. The other and longer arm is about thirty-five miles in 

 length, with diverging spurs innumerable on both sides. Its most conspicuous peaks and 

 pinnacles are Mount Hotham and Mount Feathertop. The latter derives its appellation 

 from the resemblance which its outline presents as seen from the lofty plateaux known 

 as the Baw Baw, Precipice and Horsehair Plains to the graceful curve of an ostrich- 

 feather. These table-lands have been partially explored by adventurous gold-seekers, who 

 have discovered the precious metal in payable quantities among the gravels which seem 

 to have formed the beds of ancient rivers, flowing, in some instances, a thousand feet 

 above the level of the streams which are now marked on the map. 



Mr. Alfred W. Howitt, after a careful and prolonged investigation of the geological 

 structure of North Gippsland, has been led to make the following statement : " That 

 the general land surface of Victoria probably stood in miocene times some eight hundred 

 feet lower in respect to the sea-level than it now does, and as the elevation and 

 depression of the land seems to have been on the whole equal over large tracts in 

 Southern Australia, we may conclude that the miocene Dargo flowed at least two 



