72 The Geology of the Portland Promontory, 



markedly false or current bedded, the minor laminations 

 being about two inches thick, and seldom longer than 

 15 or 20 feet. The latter dip in all directions, and at all 

 angles up to about thirty degrees. Mr. Dennant asserts 

 that their dip is often qud-qud-verscd, though I cannot 

 confirm this statement. I understand, that a dip to be qud- 

 qud-verscd, must slope from a centre, but I have discovered 

 none that were so arranged ; still, if the term may be 

 stretched to describe strata which, being contiguous, dip in 

 all directions, but which nevertheless, have no relation to 

 any common centre, then I can admit that it is applicable 

 in this case. 



Another statement made by Mr. Dennant is, that the 

 laminations of the strata are '' always parallel to the 

 bedding planes." My observations failed to discover any 

 example of this parallelism. The laminations were at an 

 oblique angle to the bedding planes in all the sections that I 

 saw, and I noticed that nearly every stratum was characterised 

 by a mean angle of dip peculiar to itself, and that this 

 mean angle was persistent in the same stratum, over long 

 distances. The section at Liddle's Watering Place is an 

 interesting example of this peculiarity. (See Sketch R.) 



The formation is very barren of fossils, but Professor Tate 

 has discovered in the South Australian extension of the 

 deposit, land shells at various depths. Upon the evidence 

 afforded by these land shells, the rock has been pronounced 

 to be of an eolian origin. Mr. Dennant believes that it is a 

 mass of consolidated sand dunes, and states that the outhne 

 and structure of the original dunes are displayed in some of 

 the cliffs, but I have not been able to recognise them, even 

 in the '' Cloven Rock," the locality which he instances. The 

 stratification of the rock, as illustrated by the Liddle's Water- 

 ing Place section, is I think, incompatible with the view that 

 the formation consists of sand dunes merely consolidated, 

 for there, each stratum has its own horizontally arranged 

 peculiarities of colour and lamination, a feature which is not 

 illustrated in the sections of any sand dunes that I have seen, 

 and which could not be produced, as far as I know, where 

 the materials accumulate upon the undulating surfaces 

 assumed by blown sand. 



It may be said that the horizontal bedding planes are 

 merely divisional joints, due to changes in the materials 

 occurring subsequent to their deposit. Were such their 

 origin then, the false bedding would, as often as not, pass 



