564 F. DEBEXHAM. 



steep on the western side of King Island, but very gentle 

 on the eastern side. This lends support to the idea that 

 King Island should be regarded as a ' horst ' standing out 

 above the great Bass Strait senkungsfeld, the steep gradient 

 of the western coast line marking the fault lines, which 

 would therefore run in a meri<!i<>n;i ! direction. Mr. T. 

 Griffith Taylor has pointed out the importance of this fact 

 in the correlation of the earth movements here with those 

 along the eastern coast of New South Wales where the 

 faulting is meridional. 



Geology-The Sedimentary Rocks.-The sedimentary 

 rocks met with on the island fall into the three divisions:— 

 Recent, Tertiary and Early Palaeozoic. 



Recent— 



(i.) Sand dunes on the western side and the associated 



arenaceous limestones, 

 (ii.) The peat beds of the lagoon areas, 

 (iii.) The M Black Sand" of the Fraser River. 



(i.) The sand dunes occur in a coastal strip, averaging 

 one and a half miles in width, extending the whole length 

 of the island on the western side. Presenting as they do 

 all the characters of typical dunes, they have obviously 

 been formed by the prevalent west and south-west winds. 

 The question as to whence the sand came is not so obvious. 

 Careful search was made along the coast for raised beaches 

 or other evidence of recent uplift, but without success. 

 But from their discovery in connection with dunes on the 

 other islands of Bass Straits and on the mainland of Victoria 

 we may perhaps assume that King Island shared in the 

 elevation of 40-50 feet, which seems to have affected 

 Bass Strait in Post-Tertiary times. 



The dunes range up to 250 feet in height, and are almost 

 everywhere covered with herbage. In places heavy timber 

 is growing on the sandhills, a fact which points to their 



