Miscellanea. 
75 
concentrated, as at Mount Macedon, I got but few specimens of 
interest. I found during my ramble fragments of bones of fossil 
Emus, Kangaroos (probably from their size those of Macropus 
Titan and Atlas of Owen,) and Phascolarctos, with portion of a 
human skeleton buried in the bank, but not fossilized. 
“ The lake itself is very shallow, not exceeding in the deepest 
part three feet, and intensely salt. Its sides are in some places 
steep, and from thirty to forty feet high. Commencing at the 
surface, they are composed as follows:—First, about two feet of 
volcanic and vegetable soil, that is, of soil the result of disinte¬ 
gration of volcanic rocks and stones; next, a marly stratum, 
varying very much in thickness, in which the bones are deposited, 
and from which they are disinterred by the winter rains, and fall 
down to the beach of the lake; the remainder of the bank is a 
stiff dark clay. The bottom of the lake, when the mud has been 
removed, is trap in various states of compactness. 
“ My own idea of this country is that the destroying agent has 
been volcanic action ; and that the level of this part of Australia 
was, at the time of the existence of the animals whose bones we 
now find in a fossil state, much lower than it now is, the climate 
more humid, and its vegetation more succulent. The lakes in 
this neighbourhood seem to have been drained by upheaving, 
which, perhaps, if carefully observed, is not yet at an end; for 
many of them have dried up with astonishing rapidity since this 
colony has been settled (about ten years,) a result, however, which 
may be partly influenced by the grass having been fed off. 
“ The coast range from Portland Bay to Wilson’s Promontory 
appears to have been one long line of volcanic action, which has 
shut out the sea wherever the range was continuous, leaving 
openings, where it was incomplete, to bays such as Port Phillip 
and Western Port. The nucleus of the isthmus from Cape Shank 
to Point Nepean is basaltic, covered with pretty pure lime on the 
surface, and a siliceous limestone next to the basalt, which is in 
some places perfectly crystalline. This barrier having once been 
formed, I suppose large salt-water lakes were left in the interior, 
which were altogether cut off from the sea, or communicated with 
the estuaries now existing. This is supported by the fact that 
Western Port and Port Phillip have occupied much larger areas 
at one time than they do at present. Indeed there are the 
remains of old lakes which now communicate with the Bay in the 
winter season; and in digging on these lakes you first find shells 
of a lacustrine character, and deeper you find those of a marine 
character, whose congeners now exist in the Bay. Many such 
situations are not only now dry, but covered with trees of a con¬ 
siderable age. This lacustrine character of the ancient country is 
well seen in all the country to the west and north-west of Geelong, 
where there are immense lakes, such as Carangamite, which, fol¬ 
lowing its sinuosities, is nearly seventy miles in circumference, 
