32 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



springs, which we felt certain must now be near us. Presently we 

 distinctly heard the water, and at length the vegetation became 

 visibly greener and more luxuriant, till suddenly we saw in front 

 of us a small still pool among the rocks, as clear as crystal, and 

 fringed with a rich growth of ferns. Into this pool a tiny 

 streamlet trickled from between the rocks. The mystery was 

 solved, and in just the way we expected, for it was evident that 

 the water from the lake filtered through the barrier at the head of 

 the gorge, and worked in underground channels between the 

 rocks which partly fill the gorge, to come out here at length 

 550 feet below the level of the lake, at a point perhaps a mile and 

 a half distant. We stopped awhile to rest and photograph, and 

 soon found that this was not the only spring. Within ten yards 

 of the pool was a beautiful little rocky-bedded stream, shaded with 

 tree ferns and the musk and other Asters, Prostanthera lasiantlw., 

 &.C., and we found that this came out in a number of springs a little 

 higher up. There are probably at least half a dozen springs dis- 

 tinguishable, and most likely the position of the outlets varies 

 with the quantity of water coming from the lake, so that at 

 the time when there is most water in the lake the springs will 

 rise at the very beginning of the watercourse we noticed in coming 

 down. As the stream at whose source we were standing is only 

 awkwardly styled the Wellington branch of the Wellington River, 

 we baptized it by the name of the Barrier Creek, alluding to its 

 mode of origin. 



We now began to retrace our steps. We were anxious to make 

 out the nature of the rocks in the middle and on the other side of 

 the Valley of Destruction. We dehberately therefore chose the 

 more difficult route, and found that a very distinct ridge ran 

 down the middle of the valley, separating ravines on either side. 

 The highest rocks lay along and helped to form this ridge. Pile 

 after pile of great jumbled rocks succeeded one another in ap- 

 parently endless confusion — huge blocks, like houses or hay- 

 stacks, with yawning abysses between them, and horrible caverns 

 under them, and dead trees fallen across them, and living scrub 

 growing thickly in the crevices : and over all this wilderness we had 

 to make our way. We climbed upwards, and upwards, scrambling 

 between the rocks or over them, and in one case beneath them, 

 only to find fresh barricades ahead of us. Now we turned to the 

 right and then to the left as precipice after precipice baffled us. 

 The rocks were found to be irruptive quartz porphyries, which 

 Mr. Howitt considers to occur interbedded with the Devonian 

 strata. They sometimes assumed strangely fantastic forms. One 

 group was especially remarkable. One gigantic rock towered 

 into the air, and bore another of about half the size perched upon 

 its summit, while alongside were two other massive fellows each 

 as big as the other two put together. It took us an hour and a half 



