Physiographi/ of Werrihee Area. 181 



(g). Since this account of previous literature has developed into 

 ;a series of grateful acknowledgments, the writer would here wish 

 Also to place on record his chief acknowledgment — to Professor 

 Skeats, of the Melbourne University, who first suggested this river 

 as a subject of study, and who has also afforded every encourage- 

 ment, and helped to make available many of the sources of infor- 

 mation mentioned above. 



(h). To Mr. A. W. Steane, of Ballarat, thanks must also be 

 recorded. Mr. Steane accompanied the wiiter on his Avanderings 

 for many weeks during vacations, and assisted to explore numerous 

 liills and valleys in which his interest was not great, and provided 

 also an easy and. rapid means of travelling from place to place. 



A full list of the references quoted in this paper will be found at 

 i;he end. (Section XII). 



IV.— History, Early Settlement, Nomenclatupe, etc. 



From the point of view of settlement, the two portions of the 

 Werribee basin — the extreme upper and the extreme lower parts — 

 present a marked and interesting contrast. The wide, level basalt 

 plains of the Lower Werribee were among the earliest settled por- 

 tions of the State, while the thickly- timbered, deeply-gullied, 

 ■quartz-strewn Ordovician ranges of the upper Werribee still remain 

 to a large extent uncharted and unsurveyed. 



To go right back to the early morning time of the history of 

 Victoria, we find that on Saturday, May 1st, of the year 1802, 

 Matthew Flinders landed on the low Western shore of Port Phillip, 

 and walked across these plains to the highest peak of the You Yangs, 

 which he called Station Peak; from there he observed the plains of 

 the Lower Werribee — the first white man so to do. His log-book 

 entry is of some physiographic interest : " Our w^ay was over a 

 low plain where the water appeared frequently to lodge; it was 

 covered with small-bladed grass, but the soil was clayey and 

 shallow." (ref. 59). It was just two years later that a second 

 explorer traversed these plains, in the person of Mr. Charles 

 Grimes, then Surveyor-General of New^ South Wales. Grimes was 

 sent by Governor King in 1803 to walk round and survey the 

 harbour of Port Phillip. During this survey, on Monday, 14th 

 February, 1803, he made the first crossing of what is now the 

 Werribee lliver. Beyond mentioning the crossing, he leaves us no 

 -observation of any value (ref. 58). 



