30 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



Buck the road — for the track widens out as we approach civiliza- 

 tion — passes over gently undulating and most monotonously un- 

 interesting country, until, after a tramp of more than 300 miles on 

 foot through one of the wildest and finest parts of Victoria, we 

 once more find ourselves in Orbost. 



Here we spend a quiet Sunday, arranging our packages. On 

 Monday evening we are at Lakes' Entrance, with no worse a mishap 

 than a broken axle, due to the remarkable avidity for deep water- 

 holes displayed by our youthful Jehu, and Tuesday finds us — 

 looking scarcely as reputable, even, as when we started — enjoying 

 •Q. lazy steam along the lakes, and enduring a miserably hot 

 journey into Melbourne. 



General Topography of the District. 



Western Croajingolong is essentially a mountainous, or, to speak 

 more correctly geologically, a hilly country — that is, the present 

 surface configuration is due, in the main, to the effects of sub- 

 aerial denudation acting upon rock masses of different degrees of 

 hardness. The general lay of the formation, as far as this can be 

 determined from observations along the tracks, has been already 

 described by Mr. Stirling,* and in the main our observations 

 agree with his. The woodcuts appended to his paper serve 

 admirably to illustrate the nature of a general section through the 

 country. As yet, nothing of the nature of detailed observations 

 have been made. 



The main mass of the district is undoubtedly composed of 

 Silurian rock (slates, shales, and sandstones), through which, in the 

 form of knobs or bands of varying length and width, masses of 

 granite have forced their way. Thus the country, enclosed by a 

 series of lines drawn from Camp i to Camp 14, then on to where 

 the track crosses the B. A. Creek, then nearly due east to where 

 the Ada joins the Erinundra, and then following south-west again 

 by the track to Camp i, is in the main composed of silurian slates 

 and shales, with, in parts, overlying conglomerates, as on the 

 ridge leading up to the M'Culloch Range. Through this mass of 

 silurian strata granite has forced its way, forming now the peaks 

 of Mounts Ellery and Raymond, the highest points of the 

 M'Culloch Hills — Mounts Lookout, Tanglefoot, and Jack — and 

 certainly the highest point on this ridge passed over by our track. 

 On either side of the latter mass of granite, especially on the east, lie 

 metamorphic rocks, schists, gneiss, and quartzites. To the north 

 of this district there appear to be two main bands of granite, 

 running south ; the one on the east, from Goon Murk to the Ada 

 River; the one on the west, from Bonang to the junction of the 



* " Proceedings of Royal Society of Victoria," 1888. 



