THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 33 



to photograph this pile of rocks. It seems a long time, but k 

 must be remembered that there was not an inch of level ground 

 on which to set up the cameras, and we had to climb up on the 

 top of several big rocks, where there was only just standing room 

 for us and our apparatus, before we could find a suitable view. 

 Finally we hit upon a good place, and while one photographed 

 the others held the legs of the camera. Still proceeding, leaping 

 or climbing according to our disposition, we came upon what we 

 thought really must be part of a cliff in situ, so enormous was 

 the single mass of rock. We had much difficulty in getting 

 round this rock, and then, satisfied with the central ridge, made 

 our way, partly by aid of a tree bridge over a chasm, slowly and 

 wearily to the Wellington side of the valley. As we passed along 

 the lake side Mr. Lucas noticed a very delicate little characeous 

 plant growing in the water, which the Baron von Mueller is for- 

 warding to Europe to the specialist, Professor Nordstedt. We 

 reached our camp about midday, just as it was coming on to 

 rain. A swim helped us to pull ourselves together again. 



As to the manner in which the lake and the Valley of Destruc- 

 tion have been formed there is more than one opinion amongst 

 us. 



Mr. Howitt still considers that the most probable explanation 

 as to Lake Nigothoruk is the action of a glacier which extended 

 from the Mt. WeUington Plains down the valley. When he first 

 visited the lake, and studied the structure of the whole country as 

 seen from the shoulder of Mt. Wellington, both causes now assigned 

 suggested themselves to him — namely, landslips and ice action. 

 The Devonian formation at the lower end of the lake consists, 

 so far as Mr. Howitt is aware, almost, if not altogether, of igneous 

 rocks, being great thicknesses of quartz porphyry (possibly also of 

 porphyrites), flanked to the east and west by sedimentary strata. 

 After several visits to Lake Nigothoruk, and such examinations as 

 limited time permitted, he is unable to conceive how in sucli 

 formations there could occur landslips of the magnitude and of 

 the kind necessary to support that hypothesis. The dam which 

 blocks the valley extends from side to side at a place where the 

 width is about ten chains. A spur on either side contracts the 

 previous width of the basin-like expanse in which is the lake. 

 The dam rises to some loo feet above the present water level, 

 and extends for over a mile down the valley, until at its termina- 

 tion it is some 500 or 550 feet below the lake. The centre of 

 this great mass of angular rocks is higher than the sides, which at 

 the range on either hand form a depression. It is at the termina- 

 tion of this gradually lowering mass of rocks filling the valley that 

 tlie waters find their exit, as the source of one branch of the 

 Wellington River. Mr. Howitt has been unable to observe any 

 signs of landslips in the igneous rocks there. The form of the 



