286 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Feb. 9, 
miles towards the Murray and the boundary of the province of 
Victoria. Probably they reach far into the interior; and it is by 
no means improbable that the tertiary sea divided Western Austra- 
lia from the eastern provinces. 
Selwyn’s Survey-map of Victoria indicates the development of 
the Tertiaries of that province, of the basalts which frequently 
cover them, and of the upper tertiary beds of doubtful age, which 
here and there hide every thing, and reduce the luxuriant vegetation 
of the soils of the older rocks to scrub. 
Strata of sedimentary or volcanic origin, referable to some sec- 
tion of tertiary or recent time, occupy probably fully one-half, or 
over 40,000 square miles, of the surface of Victoria. They are 
found resting unconformably on all the older formations, igneous 
and stratified, and range from the sea-level to elevations of over 4000 
feet. They include groups of strata of earth, loam, sand, clay, 
gravel, conglomerate, ferruginous and calcareous sandstones and 
grits, hard, gritty rock, marble and other kinds of limestone, and 
various volcanic products. 
The tertiary deposits, containing marine fossils, fringe the coast, 
and extend about sixteen miles inland on the eastern side of the 
province, between Wilson’s Promontory and Cape Howe, resting 
probably upon Paleozoic rocks. On the west they form a more im- 
portant series, reaching from the mouth of the Glenelg to Cape 
Otway. In this part of the province they extend northwards under 
a vast development of basalt for more than forty miles, and are well 
seen at Hamilton. The supporting strata are Palzeozoic rocks 
and Tcnopteris-sandstones. Between Cape Otway and Wilson’s 
Promontory, especially close to Port-Phillip Bay, these tertiary de- 
posits are found on sandstones and on basalt. In this locality, some 
of the tertiaries have had an older geological age given to them than 
the prevailing type, and all are very fossiliferous. Far away to the 
north-west, the fossiliferous tertiaries have been found on the north- 
ern bank of the Glenelg ; and vast plains of sand, ferruginous gravel, 
and clays in that region overlie the equivalent deposits of the coast- 
line. To the north and north-east was the old coast-line, now 
occupied by the Paleozoic rocks. 
No tertiary deposits containing marine fossils have been found 
at a greater elevation than about 600 feet above the level of the 
sea, and no tertiary beds whatever, containing marine fossils, 
have been recognized east of Cape Howe, in any part of New South 
Wales. 
The published sections of the tertiaries do not show any exam- 
ples of great contortion of their strata, except near Cape Otway ; 
and there the beds were deposited in a trough of highly contorted 
sandstone, and probably were more displaced by the operations of 
denudation and re-deposition than by any other causes. The thick- 
ness of the fossiliferous tertiaries is very variable. It is unknown 
in many places, and reaches to about 300 feet in the best-exposed 
sections, whilst, where much denudation has taken place, not more 
than a few feet of the rock may exist. Pure limestone, except in 
