Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia — Volume 2Sturt, Charles
History
Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia — Volume 2
Sturt, Charles
New South Wales -- Discovery and exploration; Sturt, Charles, 1795-1869
In support of the first of these conclusions, it would appear that a
current of water must have swept the vast accumulation of shells,
forming the great fossil bank through which the Murray passes from the
northern extremity of the continent, to deposit them where they are;
and it would further appear from the gradual rise of this bed, on an
inclined plain from N.N.E. to S.S.W., that it must in the first
instance, have swept along the base of the ranges, but ultimately
turned into the above direction by the convexity of the mountains at
the S.E. angle of the coast. From the circumstance, moreover, of the
summit of the fossil formation being in places covered with oyster
shells, the fact of the whole mass having been under water is
indisputable, and leads us naturally to the conclusion that the
depressed interior beyond it must have been under water at the same
time.
It was proved by barometrical admeasurement, that the cataract of the
Macquarie was 680 feet above the level of the sea, and, in like manner,
it was found that the depot of Mr. Oxley, on the Lachlan, was only 500,
there being a still greater fall of country beyond these two points.
The maximum height of the fossil bank was 300 feet; and if we suppose a
line to be drawn from its top to the eastward, that line would pass
over the marshes of the two rivers, and would cut them at a point below
which they both gradually diminish. Hence I am brought to conclude that
in former times the sea washed the western base of the dividing ranges,
at or near the two points whose respective elevations I have given; and
that when the mass of land now lying waste and unproductive, became
exposed, the rivers, which until then had pursued a regular course to
the ocean, having no channel beyond their original termination,
overflowed the almost level country into which they now fall; or,
filling some extensive concavity, have contributed, by successive
depositions, to the formation of those marshes of which so much has
been said. I regret extremely, that my defective vision prevents me
giving a slight sketch to elucidate whet I fear I have, in words,
perhaps, failed in making sufficiently intelligible.
GEOLOGICAL REMARKS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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