168 Frederick Chapman.- 



on to Cape Howe, where it disappears against the truncated rocks 

 of the Pacific Coast* 



Age of the Gravel Bed. 



From the geological evidence of the formation of a peneplain 

 Avith leaf-beds and Miocene, or "older basalt," lava flows in the 

 mountain regions of Gippsland, it may be concluded that the great 

 uplift of this fairly mature area, geographically speaking, took 

 place at the close of the Miocene and Lower Pliocene (Kalimnan) 

 times, named by E. C. Andi'ews *' The Kosciusko Period. "l A rang© 

 ■of high land running more or less parallel to the south-eastern 

 <:oast of Australia was then elevated to heights varying from 2000 

 to 7300 feet above sea-level. Following upon this, along the Gipps- 

 land Lakes district, there is evidence of a secondary subsidence, 

 which is progressing even down to the present time. This Late 

 Pleistocene to Recent downward movement is proved by the 

 drowned ends of river valleys, as pointed out by Dr. Hall,-^ which 

 are seen at the North Arm of Lake Cunniiitrbame, Lnke Bunga 

 and Lake Tyers. Further proof of this subsidence is met with in 

 the great depths of the river valleys near the coast ; and in that 

 district in 1915, 1 had the opportunity of seeing the pile driving 

 for the Nicholson River Bridge, where 80 ft. of alluvium had been 

 penetrat:d without reaching bedrock. That this subsidence, how- 

 eevr, is intermittent, is proved by finding not very far away, low 

 cliffs of Kalimnan sands well above sea-level and surrounded by the 

 torrent gravel. 



So far as my own observations go, the torrent gravels with their 

 large boulders and rounded fragments of silicified wood seem to 

 rest on or pass downwards into fine sand; at other times to rest 

 on older rocks (Janjukian). The lower sands are undoubtedly of 

 Kalimnan age, as they represent the Moitun and Boggy Creek 

 ironstone series of McCoy, and also the Jimmy's Point shell-marl. 

 This sequence is supported by evidence already published by 

 Messrs. Dennant and Clarke,^ for in a section of Underwood's 

 Cliff at Bellevue, N.W. of Bairnsdale (see woodcut), we have a fer- 

 ruginous sandy conglomerate pasing upwards into heavy gravel 

 wash ( = torrent gravel) with a fossil log; this is underlain by four- 

 teen feet of ferruginous fossil blocks (containing Kalimnan fossils), 



1 Geographical Unity of Eastern Australia. Journ. and Proc. R. Soc. N. S. Wales, vol. xlix., 

 pt. iv., 1910, pp. 420-480. 



2 Vict. Nat., vol. xxxl., 1914, p. 32. 



3 Proc. Roy. Soc. Victoria, vol. xvi. (n.s.), pt. i., 1005, p. 2?, pi. iv. 



