Victoria as a Field for Geologists. 27 



than at present. Our only resource, therefore, is in an 

 extension of time, and an extension of time so vast that the 

 geologist, pretty well used to contemplate lengthened periods, 

 and the astronomer, who is alike accustomed to meditate 

 upon space as of infinite extension, stand aghast at its 

 immensit}^ 



And 3^et these same basalts are some of the newest rocks 

 of Victoria. We frequently hear of wood, similar to that 

 still found in our forests, being dug up from beneath a 

 hundi-ed feet of tertiary gravel and bluestone. Near V/arr- 

 ntimbool dried grass is found below a solidified stratum of 

 lava. Even the beds lying beneath the basalt of Keilor are 

 all of the newer teii:iary epoch, so that this work of denuda- 

 tion and cutting through the three several masses of strata 

 spoken of must all have been accomplished since the time 

 when the English crag deposits were laid do^ni. But the 

 time elapsing since this period is but an infinitesimal fraction 

 of the whole geologic epoch. Who then shall count the ages 

 which have rolled slowly onward since the primeval granite 

 nakedly bore the brunt of the first tempest, and the first 

 atom of azoic strata found a resting place in some sheltered 

 nook of that ancient ocean. 



A few mails since I had the honour of receiving a letter 

 from Professor Eupert Jones, in which he remarked upon 

 the especially interesting features manifest, as illustrative of 

 the modern theories of erosion and fracture, in the gorges 

 referred to ; at the same time expressing a hope that 

 Victorians would not only carefully observe them, but also 

 communicate the result of their observations to the English 

 scientific world. I mention this, to show that in our own, 

 and by many, despised geology, there are peculiarities which 

 the princes, if I rnsuj so speak, of European science would be 

 only too ready to explore. 



The same strata are interesting also as being the proximate 

 cause to which our capabilities as a corn, oil, and wine 

 producing country are clearly traceable. In Kent and Sussex 

 rich agricultural land is formed by the natural admixture 

 of debris from Vv^ealden, Greensand, and Cretaceous outcrops. 

 Scotland owes its fertility to the boulder clay. Egypt is 

 rendered the corn-field of Africa by a geological cause also — 

 the periodical deposition of mud from the waters of fche Nile. 

 The barrenness of our own tertiaries is counteracted by a 

 provision equally geological and equally efficacious, yet a 

 provision which in the process of its development promised 



