66 ON THE TERTIARY DEPOSITS OF AUSTRALIA. 
of marine strata. But as on the east and south sides of Tasmania, 
so in New South Wales, tertiary marine strata are not known. 
This is a significant fact, which has a far more important influence 
on our geological history than is supposed. But while marine 
strata are not visible, volcanic strata, freshwater deposits and 
drifts, all clearly tertiary, are abu ndant. No attempt, or at least 
no successful attempt, has been made to poetic them. It is 
i that nothing short of an actual and careful survey would 
veal the age and relative position of these “ets yet something 
otter be done even by amateurs. at all our volcanic rocks 
possess features of their own, by which they may be recognized 
almost as surely as if they sacred oe is a probability 
which investigation is daily raising t rtainty. In Victoria 
the miscroscopical ae paateuaal pe caxtlins of Mr. Ulrich have 
revealed astonishing facts. Already the augitic dod hornblendic 
rocks are found to arrange themselves chronologically, and, as far 
as the learned mah “googie mineralogist has gone, show an 
important bearing on the question of auriferous rocks. It may 
be said to be sins coiathinhe d that no voleanic emanations 
— ss cover a whoté or very nearly the whole 
uthern ' the Australian continent, from about the 
125th to fhe 1 Listh. meridian foes east longitude. There an in- 
terruptions to these beds, more or less; on the east side the 
formations get more and mie narrow ly confined to the sea, 
until they disappear altogether. On ho” Australian Bish they 
are uninterrupted, and extend very far from the t line. 
peculiar ot of these shells will be dealt Vi presently. 
he interruptions to the continuity of the te wa beds are of 
much ‘aba Throughout their course on "the e 
they are continually broken into by islands of red granite rocks, 
the deserts. Besides these sail interruptions there are moun- 
tains, notably two large ones. The first, on the eastern side, is 
the South Australian chain, beginning at Cape Jervis at the 
euch « of St. Vincent’s Gulf, and terminating in what was 
formerly ee regarded as the horseshoe bend of Lake 
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