Revmvs — Australian Geology. 77 



in. — Eeport on the Geology and Mineralogy of the South- 

 eastern District of the Colony of South-Australia. By 

 the Eev. Julian E. Tenison Woods, F.G.S., E.K.G.S., etc. 

 Adelaide, pp. 33, Map, and Section. 



TO the colonists of the south-eastern portion of South Australia 

 this pamphlet may probably be of interest, and possibly of use ; 

 but its utility would no doubt have been facilitated if the author had 

 omitted his favourite discussions on the discrimination of Upper 

 Miocene from Lower Pliocene. In Europe it is so difficult to pro- 

 nounce on this question that the Austrian geologists, accustomed to 

 study a remarkably complete series of such debateable deposits in con- 

 formable sequence, have, after years of patient endeavour, " given it 

 up," and grouped them all together. How then can a single amateur 

 geologist in one corner of South Australia dictate to the Geological 

 Survey of Victoria, and perform for deposits so far away a feat 

 apparently impossible to Hoernes and his colleagues in Europe? 

 Mr. Woods has, in fact, obscured and rendered comparatively incom- 

 prehensible the really valuable material contained in his pamphlet, 

 by his numerous digressions on this subject, and his misconceptions 

 of the views of European authors, so that the " squatters " of South 

 Australia will probably be found wanting in the patience required to 

 read it through. 



There is, however, one subject treated of by Mr. Woods, which 

 requires more serious and laudatory mention, and this will be best 

 given by an extract from p. 26. " The whole of the south-eastern 

 district may, with the exception of a small fringe at the coast line, 

 be considered as a table-land gradually rising towards the boundary 

 of the province, near which it attains its greatest elevation. Like 

 all table-lands it is full of basin-like depressions upon its surface, 

 and is consequently drained badly. Lake-features, wherever they 

 occur, are more often connected with table-lands, than chains of 

 mountains ; . . . and, . . . where the rainfall is small, and the 

 elevations moderate, such depressions are an inconvenience instead of 

 being of value. They are not deep enough to be navigable, and 

 during the greater part of the year are no more than unwholesome 

 morasses. This is precisely the case in the south-eastern district of 

 South Australia, and what is worse, probably more than one-third of 

 the best land in it is utterly unavailable in consequence." The 

 table-land really consists of a series of terraces, the margins of 

 which have a somewhat greater elevation than the land behind them, 

 — hence the depressions, which Mr. Woods suggests might easily be 

 drained by cutting channels for the water through the terrace-rims. 

 This is all very true, for, as the author points out, the water would 

 find its way into the creeks and gullies that intersect the country, 

 and " the expense connected with the cutting is the only difficulty in 

 the way of draining the district." When labour becomes cheaper 

 and land more valuable, no doubt " something " will be done. 



