204 Influence of the Physical Character 
yet, if conducted with ordinary care, and with impartiality, 
it cannot fail to place in a new and important point of view, 
many questions of great public interest; of greater interest 
here, than in other climates where the hydrographical fea- 
tures are of a different character; and whatever errors may 
occur, they will be out of all proportion to the useful results 
of such an inquiry. 
Geological Formations of Victoria— This country may 
be described as consisting of vast beds of sandstones, shale, 
and clay slate, members of the Primary Fossiliferous series. 
These beds are variously contorted, and dipping at angles 
of 30°, 40°, 60%, and 70°, and they are sometimes ver- 
tical. Mr. Selwyn,” the Government Geologist, estimates 
the thickness of these deposits at 30,000 feet or more, and 
this is probably very near the truth. These sandstones and 
clay slates have been upheaved by Plutonic rocks, which are 
found to occupy comparatively large areas. ‘The hills in 
the Ovens district, Mount Alexander, Mount William, and 
the hills in the north-eastern parts of the province, are 
granitic, and excellently illustrate the character of such rocks. 
Then, there are plains of basalt, sometimes of great extent, 
where the subordinate rocks are entirely hidden, or only 
appear in isolated hills of some height, or where denuding 
causes have removed the upper basaltic formation. 
Basalt is also found filling the valleys, near the rivers, and 
in such cases the streams have cut a passage between the 
former rock and the clay slate; as may be seen in some parts 
of the river Yarra, in the rivers Coliban and Campaspie, at 
the Deep Creek near Mount Greenock, and in many of the 
streams in the western part of the Province. 
A considerable part of the Great Dividing Range is com- 
posed of igneous rocks, and they in like manner form isolated 
hills in many localities, which sometimes attain a considerable 
altitude—as Larné Baramul, Mount Boninyong, Mount 
* «<The great longitudinal extent of the auriferous deposits is a fact, not 
difficult of explanation, when we regard what appears to be the general geolo- 
gical structure of the country, which, in making a section from east to west, or 
from the Australian Alps to the Pyrenees and Grampians, is found to consist of 
a succession of steep hills, ranges, and gulleys, composed of an enormous thick- 
ness (30,000 feet, or more) of upheaved and contorted paleeozoic and older strata, 
intercepted by great masses of granitic and other apparently non-auriferous 
plutonic rocks, with extensive intervening tracts of recent igneous or voleanic 
rocks, forming plains and table lands, also non-auriferous, but, in all probability, 
often resting on and concealing auriferous deposits.”—See page 10, Geological 
Surveyors Report, 1854. 
