CAMIJRIAN STRATA 433 
prcsc'iU dircclions of llicsc folds (rll us dial (lie pressure 
came in a direction parallel lo I lie lUjualor, the axes of 
tlie folds being nearly on a norlli and south line. I lowever, 
vvidt the opening ol Cambrian (iines— a well-marked 
period in the earth's later history— the southern portion 
ol our area was again below the sea, for in the Reartl- 
more region we find beds of black limestone containing 
fossils of corals and of a primitive spongocoral called 
Archseocyatlius. TJie nortliern [portion of Victoria J /and 
was still probably d ly land. The limest one is ol 
unknown thickness, but its character tells us something. 
I'^'om its purity we can argue a clear though compara- 
tively shallow sea, while from a n u mber ol limc-stone 
breccias found, we know that alter consolidation it was 
broken up in places by earth nujvements, or even vol- 
canic eruptions, and afterwards re-cemented ag;u"n. Rut 
after this period of deposition the land again emerged 
from the sea, and no legible record is lound until much 
later. A record of a somewhat illegible kind exists in 
a comprehensive series of granites which occur in pro- 
fusion along the whole of the present coast-line. T'iicae 
are of infinite variety, and probably belong to many ages, 
but the majority seem to have In-en intruded after the 
Cambrian limestone and before the next succeeding 
strata. They were doubtless connected vvitli the uplift 
of the whole region. In their intrusion through (he 
pre-Cambrian schists tliey tore away and even assimilaletl 
Jiuge blocks of schist and grrciss, which exis( (o-day as 
enclosures in the granite. 
At the end of Pakeo/oic, or beginning of Mcso/oic 
VML. a. 2 V 
