TOPOGRAPHY OF VICTORIA. 



389 



thousand feet above the sea-level. This view would indicate a much warmer climate, 

 and would agree with conclusions as to temperature to be drawn from the marine fauna 

 of the miocene limestone of Bairnsdale." 



Mount Feathertop is one of a cluster of eight peaks, three of them unnamed, none 

 of which is less than five thousand eight hundred feet above the sea-level, nor more 

 than five miles distant from the centre of the Bogong High Plains ; but it is extremely 



MOUNT ABRUPT. 



probable that other eminences quite as lofty as the highest of these remain undiscovered in 

 this intricate labyrinth of mountainous country, so much of which awaits thorough exploration. 

 Next in importance to this net-work of ranges, which covers the greater part of an 

 area one hundred and sixteen miles long and one hundred and twenty miles broad, 

 those in the counties of Evelyn, Anglesey and Mornington, are entitled to take rank, 

 although none* of them attains the elevation of the mountains previously referred to. 

 Strictly speaking they form part of one system, and are laterals thrown off from the 

 Great Divide ; Mount St. Leonard, Mount Monda, Mount Juliet and Mount Baw Baw 

 being the most prominent of the culminating points in this region, which, so far as the 

 county of Evelyn is concerned, contains a much smaller proportion of level country than 

 of densely-timbered mountain chains, dipping abruptly down into narrow valleys, affording 

 barely space enough for a brawling stream to groove a channel. Here and there, however, 

 a cup-like hollow may be found, with room sufficient for the formation of an Alpine 

 village, one thousand five hundred or two thousand feet above the level of the sea, 

 " remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow," with the purple mountains folding it in their 



