XXXVI 
geological featukes. 
floors. They comprised various chambers or 
compartments, the most remote of which termi- 
nated at a deep chasm that was full of water. 
A close examination of these caves has led to 
the discovery of some organic remains, bones of 
various animals imbedded in a light red soil ; but 
I am not aware that the remains of any extinct 
species have been found, or that any fossils have 
been met with in the limestone itself. There 
can, however, be little doubt but that the same 
causes operated in depositing these mouldering 
remains in the caves of Kirkdale and those of 
Wellington Valley. 
About twenty miles below the junction of the 
Bell with the Macquarie, free-stone supersedes 
the limestone, but as the country falls rapidly 
from that point, it soon disappears, and the tra- 
veller enters upon a flat country of successive 
terraces. A schorl rock, of a blue colour and fine 
grain, composed of tourmaline and quartz, forms 
the bed of the Macquarie at the Cataract; and, 
in immediate contact with it, a mass of mica 
slate of alternate rose, pink, and white, was ob- 
served, which must have been covered by the 
waters of the river when Mr. Oxley descended it. 
