25 



Iviii., 1879 ; and " Geological Sections around north-east sliore 

 of Lake Alexandrina," id. vol. lY,, p. 144, 1881. 



The literature of the palaeontology of the Tertiary deposits 

 of the Lower Murray-river is more extensive than that of its 

 geology, and will be referred to when I come to speak on that 

 part of my subject. 



My personal knowledge of the Lower Murray-river is the 

 result of several weeks' sojourn in each year during the last 

 eight years at various points of its course from the jS"orth-west 

 Bend to its mouth. That part of the river from the Korth-west 

 Bend to the frontier was explored during a boat excursion 

 occupying three weeks in the month of January of the present 

 year. 



Physical Featuees of the Mtjerat-plateatj. 

 If you approach the Murray from the westward, say in the 

 latitude of Truro, you will see from the summit of the pass 

 over the Belvidere Eange, that the precipitous front of the 

 Bange, composed of Pre-Silurian rocks, bounds a vast sea of 

 green without any sensible interruption so far as the eye can 

 reach. Ton are looking down on the " mallee scrub" or 

 desert of the Murray, the chief constituents of which are 

 several species of Eucalyptus, notably E. dumosa, E. uncinata, 

 and E. oleosa. "The trees grow close together like reeds, and 

 certainly not thicker, without a branch, until about fourteen 

 feet from the ground, and so dense are they, that ten and 

 twelve stems may be counted springing from one root, and 

 occupy little more than a square foot of ground. Where a 

 road has been cut through it, it appears as though there were 

 a high w^all on each side." * 



By a rapid descent from the Eange we reach, at an elevation 

 of about 400 feet above sea level, the edge of the talus, which 

 stretches out on to the plateau for a distance of about sixteen 

 miles. Here begins the true Murray plateau, with its out- 

 croppings of limestone, and though its surface is somewhat 

 undulating yet it preserves a pretty uniform level of not per- 

 haps more than 200 feet elevation throughout its whole breadth, 

 which extends far beyond the confines of this colony. At the 

 southward this plateau ends in an ill-defined escarpment at 

 Wellington, where the river discharges itself into Lake Alex- 

 andrina. 



This extensive plateau is interrupted by the gorge of the 

 Murray-river, for it cannot be called a valley, since it is en- 

 closed by lofty continuous cliffs, appearing as if the plateau 

 had been rent asunder to allow of a passage for its waters ; 

 the river occupies, however, a very small part of the bed of the 



gorge- ^ 



* T. Woods, " Geol. Observ.," p. 34. 



