405 
of Port Phillip, N. S. Wales. 
and Karangamite, consist of a number of extinct volcanos, liaving 
well marked craters. I descended into one of these, at the bottom 
of which appeared a lake of about a mile in circumference. The 
water was very shallow, laying on a bed of clayey substance, 
similar to that of the salt lakes hereafter described. At one part 
was a beach of pieces of lava and trap rocks. There was rich 
and abundant vegetation down the sides of the crater. The water 
of the lake, on which a number of wild ducks were swimming, had 
a nauseous flavour of sulphuretted hydrogen. Some caves on the 
sides of the Mount Eeles crater are said to be still warm, and to 
emit a slight sulphureous vapour. I had not time, however, to 
visit these localities, and scarcely credit the statement. 
Stony Rises .—From the great extent of country which is covered 
with the piles of rocks, termed by the colonists, “ stony rises,” 
they form a very remarkable feature of this district. They vary 
in height from a slight elevation to about fifty feet, and form round 
heaps, or short lines, which appear to run in every direction. 
Occasionally, however, the windings of some particular ridge may 
be traced for several hundred yards, with other ridges branching 
off on either side, though without any perceptible system, as it 
were, or any one direction more general than another. On the 
outskirts of the rises to the westward of the volcanic hill of Mount 
Elephant, I remarked one of the rocky chains, whose ridge run¬ 
ning in a semicircular form, and preserving a tolerable regularity 
of height and breadth, extended through a distance of upwards 
of half a mile. A natural break occurred about the middle of 
this ridge, through which the road passed. 
There are several great formations of these rises; the most ex¬ 
tensive, I believe, and where the piles attain the greatest elevation, 
and exhibit the most curious aspect, are those to the south and 
south west of the large salt lake ot Karangamite, which cover 
probably not less than a hundred square miles of ground. In the 
midst of this undulating sea of rocks appears the extinct volcano 
called by the aborigines, Pawndon. About ten miles to the N.E. 
of this formation, commence the stony rises of the Colac district, 
around the northern portion of the fresh water lake of the same 
name. The piles are not in general high, and not so closely 
