COLONIAL GEOLOGY. 



175 



so interesting to the student of oolitic and cretaceous fossils, the Cestra- 

 cion Philipsi. 



Leaving the beach, in order to cross the peninsula at its narrowest part, 

 the bush track to be followed leads over an extensive limestone district 

 and an immense number of little hills, called locally " cups and saucers," — 

 a name derived from each hillock resembling a sort of rounded cup or 

 basin turned upside down. A more tame or dreary bit of scenery can 

 scarcely be imagined. In the valleys it is impossible to see twenty yards 

 before you, and on the higher portions of the ground you see nothing but 

 the eternal round-topped hills, each so like its fellows, that, supposing the 

 sun does not shine, one is certain to lose his bearings unless the compass 

 is constantly studied. What trees there are appear stunted and deformed, 

 and in summer the scrub below is either parched up by heat or blackened 

 by bush-fires. Ever and anon you come across a dilapidated hut, used, in 

 the days of building speculation or a dearth of coals, as the abode of 

 either a lime-burner or a wood-cutter ; but there is nothing very pleasing 

 in the spectacle. Of streams of water there are none, although springs 

 are said to be readily found at a very moderate depth. Being once lost 

 hereabout for eight hours, with an empty pocket-flask, an unpleasant re- 

 miniscence of a recent breakfast on salt meat, and beneath the parching 

 sun of an Australian summer, I have a most vivid recollection of the lo- 

 cality, and the particular joy experienced when, like the soldiers of the old 

 Grecian general, I was able to cry, " The sea ! the sea !" and survey from 

 the last dry " cup and saucer" of the set or series the fine spectacle of 

 Bass Straits rolling its giant waves lazily on the beach. 



The first thing striking the tourist on the Straits side of the peninsula 

 is the number of sand dunes everywhere apparent. These are still in pro- 

 cess of formation, stretching with a gentle slope towards the sea, present- 

 ing a tolerably steep escarpment inland, looking the very pictures of 

 desolation, bare as they are of all herbage, save where a few sand-reeds 

 have taken root, or where some already half-buried tree stretches its few 

 leaf-covered branches above the drifting sand. 



The limestone hereabout is remarkable for containing numerous con- 

 cretions shaped like branches and roots. Settlers in the neighbourhood 

 declare these to be petrified trees, long since buried as before described ; a 

 belief in some degree borne out by the large number of trees seen to be, 

 more or less, complete^ covered up in all directions by the ever-moving 

 hills. Certainly the resemblance to petrified trees is exceedingly great, 

 and down the centre of more than one of these bodies I have myself found 

 running a small portion of decaying wood ; so that if the ligneous substance 

 does not actually petrify, it may act as a sort of conductor, whereby water 

 is guided through the mass, cementing, in time, the grains of sand and 

 comminuted shells into a stone harder than the surrounding rock. 



The wide extent of sandy beach and the friable nature of the limestone 

 is hardly favourable to the development of very precipitous cliffs, and 

 generally, even where the coast is highest, the ground slopes with tolerably 

 steep descent towards the sea. After a time, however, a singular change 

 in the cliff formation is apparent. A jutting headland is distinctly seen, 

 in the distance, presenting its lowermost and basement stratum to the 

 waves as a straight and perpendicular wall of rock, whilst higher up there 

 is the formerly observed sloping portion, the whole looking somewhat like 

 the edge of a plank bevelled to the extent of half its thickness. This ap- 

 pearance is the natural result of the lower portion being basalt and the 

 upper being limestone, similar to that before described. This cliff, cora^ 



