26 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



The row down the river is very pretty, both banks being com- 

 pletely covered with the original vegetation, no sign of man's 

 work to be seen until you arrive at the bridge which connects 

 the road to Airey's Inlet, further south. Here the country opens 

 out, and the range to the right rises upwards, disclosing quite a 

 number of houses scattered over the hillside. 



Nearing the coast the inlet becomes very shallow, and a sharp 

 lookout has to be kept for treacherous mudbanks, and finally the 

 sand completely shoals up the entrance. During January last 

 there was fully three hundred yards of sand between the river 

 and the sea. The sea coast towards the north-east is different 

 from anything I have observed before. For upwards of four 

 miles from the river to Point Addis there are huge frowning cliffs 

 the whole way. The day I went round I timed it so that the 

 tide was full out, consequently I had a beautiful hard sandy 

 beach, just perfect for the wheelman. There are no rocks, 

 except at two points a couple of miles apart, but the land rises 

 up almost perpendicularly from ioo to 200 feet. I was so struck 

 with the peculiar appearance of the cliff that I examined it care- 

 fully. The base for a few feet seems to be sandstone, over this 

 a belt from 30 to 100 feet thick of a kind of dark mudstone, 

 which was so friable that I crushed it in my hands into im- 

 palpable powder. Mr. T. S. Hall informs me that this rock 

 contains a number of small fossils, but I did not find any. If 

 any of our geological members visit the district they would have 

 a good chance of getting something, by tin-dish washing, that 

 would serve to elucidate the age of this stratum. The vertical 

 face of the cliff is evidently due to its soft structure, for a crack 

 formed on the surface near the edge during dry weather would 

 allow the subsequent rain to percolate downwards, thus widening 

 the crack, and in the meantime the sea, in bad weather, would 

 wash away a few feet at the base, and so a complete slice would 

 fall down. That this is the case may be seen all along the coast 

 by the remains of recent falls. At one of these I was enabled to 

 see that the stratum above the dark mud rock was, like the base, 

 formed of sandstone. Point Addis itself ends in a jumble of 

 immense rocks, so rugged and slippery that I could not pass. 



South-westerly from Anglesea the coast is very different ; it 

 rises gently from the river to a height of about 400 feet ; the 

 surface, scrubby at the base, becomes more heathy as it ascends. 

 Here I found a great quantity of plants of a species hitherto 

 unrecorded in Victoria except for the north-west, the Mallee 

 country. It is one of the Rhamnacea, Gryptandra vexillifera, a 

 low and very pretty shrub. The slopes were very gay with a 

 coarse tufty grass, mixed with bright lilies, and several species of 

 Compositse. The Fringed Lily, Thysanotus tuberosus, was very 

 evident, also a great number of everlastings. The base of this 



