Page:EB1911 - Volume 02.djvu/994

 central Australia and in Victoria, where the fullest sequence is known; while they also extended north-eastward from Victoria into New South Wales, where, as yet, no Cambrian rocks have been found. The Silurian system was marked by the retreat of the sea from central Australia; but the sea still covered a band across Victoria, from the coast to the Murray basin, passing to the east of Melbourne. This Silurian sea was less extensive than the Ordovician in Victoria; but it appears to have been wider in New South Wales and in Queensland. The best Silurian sequence is in New South Wales. Silurian rocks are well developed in western Tasmania, and the Silurian sea must have washed the south-western corner of the continent, if the rocks of the Stirling Range be rightly identified as of this age.



The Devonian system includes a complex series of deposits, which are of most interest in eastern Australia. This period was marked by intense earth movements, which affected the whole of the east Australian highlands. The Lower Devonian beds are in the main terrestrial, or coarse littoral deposits, and volcanic rocks. The Middle Devonian was marked by the same great transgression as in Europe and America; it produced inland seas, extending into Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, in which were deposited limestones with a rich coral fauna. The Upper Devonian was a period of marine retreat; the crustal disturbances of the Lower Devonian were renewed and great quartz-pebble beaches were formed on the rising shore lines, producing the West Coast Range conglomerates of Tasmania, and the similar rocks to the south-east of Mansfield in Victoria. Intrusions of granitic massifs in the Devonian period formed the primitive mountain axis of Victoria, which extends east and west across the state and forms the nucleus of the Victorian highlands. Similar granitic intrusions occurred in New South Wales and Queensland, and built up a mountain chain, which ran north and south across the continent; its worn-down stumps now form the east Australian highlands.

The Carboniferous period began with a marine transgression, enabling limestones to form in Tasmania and New South Wales; and at the same time the sea first got in along the western edge of the western plateau, depositing the Carboniferous rocks of the Gascoyne basin and the coastal plain of north-western Australia. The Upper Carboniferous period was in the main terrestrial, and during it were laid down the coal-seams of New South Wales; they are best developed in the basin of the Hunter river, and they extend southward, covered by Mesozoic deposits, beyond Sydney. The Coal Measures become narrower in the south, until, owing to the eastward projection of the highlands, the Lower Palaeozoic rocks reach the coast. The coal-seams must have been formed in well-watered, lowland forests, at the foot of a high mountain range, built up by the Devonian earth movements. The mountains both in Victoria and New South Wales were snow-capped, and glaciers flowed down their flanks and laid down Carboniferous glacial deposits, which are still preserved in basins that flank the mountain ranges, such as the famous conglomerates of Bacchus Marsh, Heathcote and the Loddon valley in Victoria, and of Branxton and other localities in New South Wales. The age of the glacial deposits is later than the Glossopteris flora and occurs early in the time of the Gangamopteris flora. Kitson’s work in Tasmania shows that there also the glacial beds may be correlated with the lower or Greta Coal Measures of New South Wales.

The Permian deposits are best developed in New South Wales and Tasmania, where their characters show the continuation of the Carboniferous conditions. The Mesozoic begins with a Triassic land period in the mainland of Australia; while the islands of the Australasian festoon contain the Triassic marine limestones, which fringe