Western Victoria. G5 



The Rev. Julian Woods thouglit that this lava flowed 

 from a crater situated where isolated rocks now form the 

 group known as the Laurence Rocks. I know of no facts 

 inimical to this theory, and the circumstance that the 

 lava beds thin out as they recede from that neighbourhood 

 is in its favour. I searched carefully for elongated vesicles 

 in the lava, as evidence of the direction of its flow, but 

 could find none in sitH, though I saw them in many of the 

 loose boulders, where they were valueless to me. It is Yvj\\i 

 to say, that Mr. Dennant, F.G.S., questions this view, on the 

 ground that the Laurence Rocks are capped with limestone 

 and not with ash, as asserted by Mr. Woods. As I did not 

 visit the islets, I cannot say which of these authorities gives 

 tlie correct facts, but it seems to me that .such a low vent 

 might easily have become covered up with a limestone 

 deposit subsequently, and, therefore, I think that Mr. Woods 

 may be right in his theory as to the location of the crater, 

 even if he should prove to have been wrong as to the nature 

 of the capping. 



The lava of this area is in some places at least 150 feet in 

 depth, but the mass is built up of an enormous number of 

 separate flows. These vary in thickness from one to ten 

 feet. The beds are lenticular in transverse section, and 

 none that I saw were more than 100 yards wide. They are 

 bedded more or less horizontally. The thickness of the 

 whole mass varies greatly within short distances, and I 

 think that much of this inequality is due to aqueous erosion, 

 for the most marked dift'erences occur in the neighbourhood 

 of the existing or of the sites of former watercourses. The 

 biggest of these have but a feeble flow now, though it 

 is likely that during some portion of the post-miocene 

 period their streams were of a much greater volume than 

 they are to-day, and consequently, that they then had 

 much more power. This eroding action has been further 

 promoted by the fact that the coast edge has been rising 

 rather faster than the parts inland ; for just as a circular 

 saw cannot cut into a log unless the latter be pushed 

 against it, so a stream, that has reached its base-level 

 of erosion, cannot deepen its channel, unless the latter is 

 being raised so as constantly to expose a lower stratum of 

 of its floor to the scour. The south-east niaroin of this 

 penmsula has cockled up, but the flowing water has preserved 

 its channel by cleaving the rim to sea level. 



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