Aet. XVIII. — The Physical Features of the Australian 



Alps. 



By James Stibling. 



[Eead 9th December, 1881.] 

 (With Diagrams.) 



Article 1. — The Mitta Source Basin. 

 INTEODUCTOEY. 



Inteesected by the 87th parallel of south latitude and by 

 the 147th and 148th meridians of east longitude is situate 

 a tract of mountainous country, which has not been inaptly 

 called the Alpine regions of Victoria, exhibiting a polymor- 

 phic variety of physical features at once interesting and 

 instructive — an area within which are situated the highest 

 elevations of the Victorian Cordillera, lofty peaks and 

 elevated snow-clad plateaux (the latter connected to the 

 main range by ridges of varying width and surface contour), 

 amid whose perennial springs most of the principal streams 

 flowing into the Gippsland lakes on the south and the 

 Murray River on the north find their sources. The general 

 trend of the Dividing Range is here north-easterly, and the 

 different source basins it divides are the Indi, Mitta Mitta, 

 Kiewa, and Ovens, flowing northerly, and the Buchan, 

 Tambo, Mitchell, and Macalister, flowing southerly. Owing 

 to their elevation, the more prominent peaks and plateaux 

 are annually covered with snow, which does not melt from their 

 southern and more shaded slopes for many months of the 

 year; and those heights which exceed 6000 feet above sea 

 level are devoid of shrub vegetation. The greater part of 

 the Dividing Range, however, is covered with a vigorous 

 growth of vegetation, principally eucalypts, with under- 

 growth scrub (thickly growing olearias, pomaderris, 

 Lomatias bedfordias,and other well-known arboreous shrubs), 

 most luxuriant amid the heads of those gullies starting from 

 the southern side of the range. The conformation of the 

 Dividing Range is not that of an anticlinal ridge throughout, 

 but presents a diversity of contour, rising into dome-shaped 



