COLOyiAL GEOLOGY — MELEOURNE. 
31 
confined to particular organisms, but is due probably to the same causes 
as are the colours of the fossils in the Botanical Garden quarries. 
Moonee Ponds is, and perhaps will long remain, the most plentifully- 
stocked preserve for the Melbourne collector. The prevailing rocks are 
shales and sandstones, the latter, in many places, being literally made up 
of marine exuvia, matted together, organism upon organism, in such a 
manner as to render the extraction of a perfect fossil a matter of some 
little difficulty. 
The general custom of these beds as depicted on both maps, but more 
especially that which shows the surrounding countr}^ on a smaller scale, 
present an outline peculiarly suggestive. It will be observed that the 
borders of the formation are turned principally towards south and westerly 
points of the compass, the eastern boundaiy abutting against the granitic 
and porph}Titic masses of the Dandenong ranges. Seen alone, as there 
represented, the above fact might be deemed hardly worthy of remark ; 
but the bold cliff-like escarpments which form the outline in many places, 
such escarpments havijig almost invariably a south or westerly aspect, 
suggests the cause, and tells of strong currents, oceanic action, and a steep 
and rocky shore exposed to the full fury of an extensive and stormy waste 
of water. Near Melbourne, in Studley Park, overlooking the flats of Eich- 
mond and Collingwood, the feature alluded to is strikingly apparent. 
Standing on the lower ground, tlie resemblance to a precipitous coast is 
especially manifest; whilst ga/ing from the summit, one is almost inclined 
to fancy the many undulations of the ground below are the arrested bil- 
lows of some ancient sea. At times, as a thick fog covers the plain be- 
neath, and when the higher portions of city and suburb just peep out of 
the mist-like islets, the old and fancied state of things seems realized ; 
whilst from the Tertiary beds below and their wide extension, almost uni- 
versal in a south-westernly direction, save in the case of a few granitic 
masses. Mount Eliza, Mount Martha, Arthur's Seat, and the Yowangs, 
the student m ell knows that the time could not be geologically far distant 
when the waves, breaking near the spot whereon he stands, came rolling in 
from an expanse of ocean uninterrupted by land, rock, or island, nearer 
than the Falklands or the Horn. 
Tertiary deposit;? are developed to a great extent over the whole of 
Australia, and are well represented in the Melbourne district ; more so, 
in fact, than appears upon the map, since they both overlie and underlie 
the basaltic lavas, and besides cover with a thin capping in many places 
the upturned edges of the elder Silurian strata. 
A tolerably good view of the Upper Tertiary beds can be obtained by 
following the line of the Melbourne and Brighton railway, along which, 
after the first few miles, where Basalt and outlying patches of Silurian 
rocks are traversed, some thick beds of the newer Pliocene are exposed. 
In a cutting near Chapel Street station, three or four miles south-west of 
Melbourne,a junction of the older with the newer rocks discloses a somewhat 
instructive section. The Silurian beds had there formed an abrupt coast- 
line, or at least an uneven and rocky bottom, and upon them rests in un- 
conformable stratification the Tertiary sediment above, — forming a number 
of thin beds, gradually growing less and less curved, until attaining 3 or4 
feet in thickness, when all traces of the uneven bottom is lost by the suc- 
ceeding deposits being thrown down in nearly level lines. 
From this point on the line the same Tertiary beds are exposed in each 
succeeding cutting as far as Brighton, a suburban watering-place eight miles 
from the metropolis, on the shores of Port Phillip Bay. On the beach neai 
Brighton, small outcrops of Lower and ferruginous Pliocene beds first 
present themselves, and, pursuing the line of coast, these are found gra- 
