Western Victoria. 73 



out of one stratum into the next, and the colouring matter 

 would be distributed without reference to tlie lines of joint. 

 Now, I have already said that each pair of bedding planes 

 enframes its own pattern of dip, and that it outlines a 

 particular tint. Such a linear distribution of these features 

 must indicate a different age, and a separate, though other- 

 wise similar origin for each stratum in the formation, and if 

 this deduction be allowed, then it must also be admitted 

 tliat the rock cannot be merely consolidated sand dune. 



The embedded land shells would appear to indicate that 

 its origin must be eolian, but it seems to be equally clear, 

 that the several strata must have been, ah origine, so 

 many distinct formations deposited at different times, and 

 under conditions which, although mainly similar, were 

 variable in some minor respects. It seems to me that each 

 of these rock courses is but the truncated remnant of a 

 separate generation of sand dunes, a thin horizontal slice of 

 their confluent hardened bases. What agency is there that 

 could grind down such mammillated deposits, until but a 

 a thin veneer of the material of each one is left 1 The onl}" 

 one known to me is that of the sea, assisted by repeated 

 slight land oscillations. Rapid and repeated changes in the 

 sea level are not improbable occurrences upon a coast b'ne 

 which is studded with volcanic craters, and scarred with 

 raised beaches. The latter phenomena testify to a condition 

 of unstable equilibrium existing between the subterranean 

 forces, which would account for the mobility of its surface, and 

 would explain its alternate emergence and immersion ; its 

 burial under a beach drift at one period, and its dis- 

 appearance under a shallow sea at another. 



This limestone deposit does not appear to be a thick one, for 

 many years ago, two bores were put through it in a search 

 after coal in Nelson Bay. The records of the strata passed 

 through appear to have been lost, but Mr. Must, who with 

 the Messrs. Henty, controlled the enterprise, tells me that 

 the first bore was sunk on the top of the limestone cliff, 

 and that it was stopped by basalt. The second one 

 was started on a ledge which occurs low down in the 

 face of the cliff. The rod passed through the limestone 

 into a thin stratum of red sandstone, and then through 

 beds of red and blue clay. It was stopped in the latter 

 at a total depth of only seventy feet. This would give 

 250 feet as the thickness of the limestone at this point, 

 and this is probably as thick as it is anywhere. No basalt 



