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THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 
and concluding with an account of the various ores and minerals 
found. As few departures from this order will be made as is con- 
sistent with clearness in the description of each formation. 
Lowsr Patarozoic.—The beds which I now proceed to describe 
agree in lithological characters with silurian strata in other parts of 
the colony, but as up to the present no fossils have teen found inthem, 
it is not possible to determine with absolute certainty whether they 
should be so classed. Although they constitute the bed rock over a 
considerable area, they are visible on the surface in a few localities only, 
so that nothing but a superficial examination has been made, but with 
further research it is not improbable that fossil remains may yet be 
discovered. The strata are first noticed a few miles north of 
Casterton, and extend northwards to the Chetwynd river, eastward 
as far as Wando Dale, and westward to the banks of the Glenelg 
at Roseneath, and consist of soft earthy shales and slates of a 
greyish white or brown color, with tolerably perfect cleavage, standing 
either on edge, or showing a high dip. At Wando Dale, this was 
found to be about eighty degrees to New South Wales, giving a 
strike for the rocks there of N.N.W. to 8.S.E., which is similar to 
that observed in silurian strata throughout Victoria. Bands of very 
hard quartzite occur at Brimboal, and the slaty beds are generally 
traversed by thin veins of quartz. 
The best sections are seen on the banks of the Wando and Steep 
Bank rivers, and also at Roseneath, where the rocks are well ex- 
posed in a cutting made along the side of a hill for a roadway to the 
home station, which is itself built on the top of a slate hill. West 
of Roseneath, no strata of lower palaeozoic age are met with in the 
colony, nor indeed are they found again until the river Murray in 
South Australia is crossed, while east of Wando Dale, they first 
appear at Mount Stavely, sixty miles distant, so that this outcrop 
may be regarded as an isolated patch in Western Victoria. 
In the contour of the surface, the region has one feature in 
common with Silurian areas generally, and that consists in its being 
often intersected by steep gullies, caused, not only by the high dip 
of the slates, but also by their friable nature allowing the winter 
torrents to cut deeper and deeper channels through them. The 
Steep Bank Rivulet is so named from the characteristic abruptness 
of its banks. Many an old miner, struck by the resemblance of this 
country to the gold mining districts, has searched in the sands of 
the streams mentioned for gold, and if report speaks truly, with the 
result of at least finding the “color.” A small nugget, said to 
have come from the Wando, was lately given to the writer by an old 
resident on that river, who was most circumstantial in accounts cf 
both himself and others haying found gold at various times in the 
neighbourhood. 
