104 



miles from the shore at the head of the Bight, where the depth 

 of water, according to D' Entree asteaux and Flinders, is from 27 

 to 30 fathoms. Beyond the base of this tertiary platform a 

 great depression was observed by the late Capt. Owen Stanley, 

 in the Rattlesnake. 



For some miles to the west from Fowler's Bay the margin of 

 the older tertiary is for the most part obscured by newer beds, 

 but near Coymbra it forms an escarpment which is traceable 

 around the sandhills at the head of the Bight, and beneath the 

 sand drifts at Peelunibie to where it forms the commencement 

 of the Bunda cliffs. The cliffs hence present a precipitous 

 front to the sea without a beach at the base to within sixteen 

 miles from Wilson's Bluff, thence to that headland a steep slope 

 of consolidated blown sand masks their face. The Bunda Cliffs 

 have a nearly straight trend with a general bearing of west 5 deg. 

 south, but at Wilson's Bluff they curve a little to the north and 

 continue as a bold inland escarpment, called the Hampton 

 Range, having a direction nearly parallel with that of the sea 

 cliffs, curving southward in lat. 127 deg., and reach the sea at 

 fifteen miles to the west of Eyre's Patch or 180 miles from 

 Wilson's Bluff ; thence to Point Culver, a distance of 100 

 miles, the edge of the older tertiary plateau presents a 

 perpendicular front to the sea similar to that of the Bunda. 



The whole country between the scarped front of the Hampton 

 Range and the sea is a sandy plain, "Roe's Plains," encumbered 

 with debris from the cliffs, and the sea margin with hills of 

 blown sand. The width of this plain varies, as the coast line 

 does not conform with the trend of the escarpment. At 

 Knowsley, 24 miles from Eucla, it is 10 miles ; at Mandrabiela, 

 61 do., 20 ; at 110 miles from Eucla, 22 ; at Eyre's Patch, 160 

 miles from Eucla, 5. 



Geological Sections of Older Tertiary constituting the Bunda 

 Plateau. — Flinders described the upper one-third part of the 

 cliffs as brown and the lower two-thirds as white, and that the 

 upper brown stratum augmented in jn'oportional quantity as he 

 advanced to the east. Eyre added very little to this brief 

 account in his description of the structure of Wilson's Bluff ; 

 he, however, notes the lithological characters of the two 

 bands, and the presence of shells in the upper stratum and of 

 flints in the lower "gritty chalk." 



My principal section is that of Wilson's Bluff, which is 

 subjoined, but as an apologetical introduction I may apply to 

 myself the words of Eyre — "Being now at a part of the cliffs 

 where they receded from the sea, and where they had at last 

 become accessible. . . . the part I selected was high, steep, 

 and bluff towards the sea, which washed its base. By crawling 

 and scrambling among the crags I managed, at some risk, to get 



