THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 18B 



it is not as a rule free from incident, but in order to plunge in medias 

 res at once, we will imagine ourselves there, and after a good night's 

 rest at the hotel, just starting on our first tour the following morning. 

 We (I say we, for there was another naturalist with me) were bound 

 for Kilcunda and its coal mines. Although, as far as friendship 

 ^oes, my fellow tourist and I were the best of chums, yet from a 

 natural history point of view, we were more matched than mated, 

 for my friend's speciality, to tlie exclusion of almost everything else 

 besides, was entomology, wliilst my partiality was for rocks, fossils, 

 marine objects and almost anything as long as it wasn't insects (and 

 let me add in a parenthesis, and saving the presence of the Field 

 Naturalists' Club, birds' eggs and orchids.) The distance to 

 Kilcunda is about seven miles through the bush, and somewhat 

 longer following tlie coast line, and here our different tastes caused 

 a slight divergence of mind to begin with ; my friend, having regard 

 to inject hunting, preferring the bush route, whilst I, wishing to see 

 the rock sections exposed on the cliffs, and- to gather shells, &c., 

 wanted to go the beach road. However we didn't c|uarrel or separate, 

 but agreed to s})lit the difference, and to walk the first half of the 

 way through the bush, where my friend could catch spiders, beetles, 

 a,nd butterflies to his heart's content, and then to strike for the sea- 

 'Coast where I could have my fling for the rest of the way. 



Geologically speaking, the whole country along the coast here 

 and far away into Gippsland consists of Mesozoic rocks, for the most 

 part sandstones, conglomerates and breccias of a greenish or olive 

 grey hue, like the corresponding formations of the Otway district, with 

 Jiere and there thin coal seams varying in thickness from a sheet of 

 paper to two or more feet, and in some instances isolated branches 

 or trunks of trees lying embedded in the rocks by themselves and 

 more or less converted into coal, and we frequently observed veins 

 and coatings of calcareous spar. I may mention that these rocks 

 being coal-bearing are called " Carbonaceous," to distinguish them 

 ' from the true Carboniferous rocks of England and other countries, 

 and which are far lower down in the geological series, being a sub- 

 division of the Palaeozoic, whilst our coal-bearing rocks are, as 

 mentioned before Mesozoic, about the same horizon as the Oolite 

 strata, so at least it is believed. 



The whole facies of these rocks at once sti-iko the observer as being- 

 very different to the Silurian schistose and sandstone rocks upon 

 winch Melbourne is built, and sections of which we pass through 

 every day in the railway trains exposed in the cuttings, the prevail- 

 dng colour of these latter being shades of brown and yellow, whereas 

 the usual colour of the Mesozoic rocks in Victoria is greenish grey,, 

 iidd to which they are much more sUiceous and harder. 



After a journey of about fifteen miles, as I think we made it by 

 following almOit every turn and bend in the coast line, we arrived at the 



