Page:Native Tribes of South-East Australia.djvu/45

I modern rivers flow, with but a slight fall to the sea by way of the Murray River Valley.

During the past thirty years the Victorian Department of Mines has carried out an immense amount of boring with the diamond drill, by which the underground contours of the valleys, and also the trend of the deep leads extending north and south from Ballarat have been ascertained.

It seemed to me that a comparison of the data thus obtained might prove of interest, and for this purpose I have selected the statistics of bores put down furthest north on three main leads, where the hilly country subsides into the great levels of the plains through which the River Murray winds its course towards South Australia and the sea.

Each locality chosen is not far distant from the termination of the flow of basalt, by which the old valley had been levelled, and which itself is, at its termination, levelled off by the later alluviums of the plains.

The following are the data from which I have drawn certain conclusions:—