264 CI carles Fenner: 



wholly in the basalt, while the eastern Moorabool has cut down 

 through that rock into Ordovician and glacial. There are no 

 sections of old basalt-filled valleys here, as far as the writer could 

 determine, except one close to the Bradshaw's railway station, cut 

 through by the eastern Moorabool. This old stream no doubt flowed 

 to the east, and may be regarded as the ancestor of Paddock Creek. 



West of the Eastern Moorabool, and within the easterly loop 

 above referred to, there are comparatively high, rough hills of" 

 folded Ordovician slates, with many small patches of glacial sand- 

 stones, and flanked on the north by ferruginous tertiary grits. 

 The area was no doubt high land in pre-newer basaltic times, and 

 this fact suggsts the presence of a broad valley extending in width: 

 eastward beyond Ballan. This would indicate that the upper 

 streams of the present Eastern Moorabool and Werribee were at 

 that time united in this area. 



As we go further north the Ballan to Daylesford road follows the 

 divide between the Moorabool and Werribee basins, as also does an 

 old railway survey. The divide here is still very low^ and flat, 

 with many swamps; some of these drain to the Eastern Moorabool 

 and some to the Werribee. The rocks are volcanic, capped by sand 

 and buckshot gravels, fairly well timbered. This continues to near- 

 Bunding, where the high flat-topped volcanic cone of Egan's Hill 

 separates the two rivers. Further north we descend from the 

 volcanic sheet, and pass to the Ordovician ranges which lie north 

 of the Greendale fault line. The road is here very bad, and the 

 grades much steeper. The Eastern Moorabool (here the site of the 

 Korweinguboora reservoir, Geelong Water Supply) is on the whole 

 in a much more mature valley than is the Werribee. The latter 

 shows that an old lava stream originally filled its course here, but 

 that has now been mainly carved away, and remains only as 

 basaltic patches, underlain by river gravels, somewiiat above the 

 present level of the valley bottom. 



This country forms part of the State Forest, and is thickly tim- 

 bered with big eucalypts, blackwoods, scrub, bracken, etc. A lava 

 flow coming down this valley at the present day would have its pro- 

 gress very greatly impeded by this timber, w^hich grows right to 

 the bottom of the valley. The thought arises whether the ancient 

 lava-buried valley was similarly timbered, and if so what became 

 of the trees. Probably very severe ''bush fires" would accom-^ 

 pany the flows of the molten lava. 



Still further north, at the Mineral Spring Hotel, the divide be- 

 tween the Werribee and the Moorabool is an insignificant Ordo- 



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