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NOTE ON TIMBER FOUND BENEATH ALLUVIAL 

 DRIFT AT SWANSEA. 

 By Col. W. V. Legge, R.A., F.Z.S., M.B.O.U. 

 (Bead August 10th, 1895.) 



On the pleasant drive from Bicheno to Swansea the traveller, 

 after crossing over the spurs of [the range called " Lyne's 

 Sugar Loaf" by the so-called "cut," comes suddenly in view 

 of the large level tract of country lying south of the hills he 

 is descending, and stretching from the hamlet of Cranbrook 

 inwards towards the foot of the ranges which bound the St. 

 Paul's Yalley on the east. This tract is mainly formed by the 

 coast range, which fringes the shore from St. Patrick's Head 

 to Bicheno, suddenly swerving inland at the latter place, and 

 joining the above-mentioned highlands east of the St. Paul's 

 which lie at some distance from the East Coast. At the 

 latitude of Swansea the ranges approach the coast again, and 

 then follow the shore southwards. The level tract of country 

 hemmed in by these features is alluvial, and forms what may 

 be generally styled the basin of the Swan River, and its 

 smaller companion streams, the "Cygnet" and the "Wye." 

 Unfortunately the topography of this island is so poorly de- 

 lineated on existing maps that the mountain features I have 

 touched upon scarcely appear upon them, and unless one 

 visits the district one would have no idea that there is 

 so large a tract of level country on the Swan River. 



The surface of this "basin" is mostly level, with here and 

 there gentle rises of about 100 feet in altitude. The soil is 

 chiefly dark chocolate, being apparently the result of denuda- 

 tion and drift from the extensive valleys on the highlands at 

 the back. On the estate of Cambria, which lies mainly at 

 the foot of the hill, locally called the " Lookout," the soil is 

 rich and of great depth ; and on that part of it lying between 

 the main road and the shores of Oyster Bay there is a lagoon 

 of considerable extent, which seems in former times to have 

 had egress to the Meredith River by a watercourse now 

 extinct, but visible in the form of an ordinary sinuous de- 

 pression in the paddocks. Following the course of this 

 depression a deep dyke has recently been cut by Mr. 

 Meredith to drain the lagoon. In the shallowest part of the 

 old watercourse this ditch attains a maximum depth of about 12 

 feet, and it was at the bottom of it that the men employed in 

 the work came upon the log, lying transversely to the direc- 

 tion of the drain. It was so hard that they had considerable 

 difficulty in cutting it asunder with an axe, a fact which may 



