lxix. 



limestone at Adelaide, yet he made a great mistake in 

 attributing to it a marine origin, and in consequence his 

 deduction that our hills had been raised that amount within a 

 very recent period is based on wrong premises. Mr. Selwyn 

 has equally misunderstood the nature of the " crust limestone." 

 Mr. Woods, writing about the extensive area occupied by 

 recently-raised marine beds in the South-East, has not been 

 able to give actual heights above sea level, but ventures to 

 estimate the amount of upheaval at not . less than 80 feet. 

 However, it is not clear, that these figures refer to the height 

 of the shell beds or to that of the terraces of Pleistocene sand- 

 stone, similar to those of Cape Northumberland and Bivoli 

 Bay, which divide the plain from the Coorong to Lacepede Bay 

 at every ten miles or so. 



Accurate measures of the height of the marine beds com- 

 posing the salt marshes resting on the Port Creek, and at 

 Yalata, Fowler's Bay, determine that the elevation is of only 

 slight amount. 



The estuarine limestone, which fringes the Dry Creek salt 

 marsh, and which is of about six to twelve inches thick, and 

 crowded with Ampliibola Quoyaua, Misella melanostoma, and other 

 littoral shells, is not more than twelve feet above ordinary 

 high water mark. The limestone overlies the drift, but 

 graduates into the estuarine muds and sands which occupy the 

 salt marsh. The marsh is at rare intervals overflown, but 

 extraordinary tides do not reach the estuarine limestone. 



The topmost bed of the marine deposits of the Yalata swamp 

 is only six feet above high water mark, whilst that of the Boe 

 Plains at Eucla is about twelve feet. 



Volcanoes of the South-East. — These have been very 

 fully described by Mr. Woods, and but one question arises in 

 connection therewith, viz., at what period were they erupted? 

 They are newer than the Miocene, because the Mount Grambier 

 limestone forms the base of the cones, and its fragments occur 

 entangled in the ash beds ; they are newer than the Pliocene 

 sand and loess which are interstratified between the Mount 

 Gambier limestone and the ash beds of the volcano of that 

 place. The Pliocene sands and loess at this place are of 

 terrestrial origin ; they contain remains of Diprotodon, Phasco- 

 lomys pliocenicus, McCoy ; and leaves of Casuarina and BanJcsia 

 are impressed ou the under surface of the superimposed ash- 

 layer. 



Did man witness the showers of ashes and the glow of the 

 internal fires of these cones reflected from the clouds ? Pro- 

 bably yes ! Have we any traditions ? No ? But palaeonto- 

 logical evidence answers in the affirmative. Thus, the dingo 

 (Canis dingo) was the contemporary of the Diptrodon, whose 



