opening to the east, lies Corner Inlet, which is dry at low water. The coast now continues low to the extremity of the colony. The slight bend northward forms a sort of bight called the Ninety Mile Beach, but it really exceeds that length. It is an unbroken line of sandy shore, hacked by low sandhills, on which grows a sparse dwarf vegetation. Behind these hills comes a succession of lakes, surrounded by excellent land, and beyond these rise the soft blue outlines of the mountain masses of the interior. The shores on the extreme east are somewhat higher, and occasionally rise in bold points. They terminate in Cape Howe, off which lies Gabo Island, of small extent but containing an important lighthouse and signalling station.
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The western half of Victoria is level or slightly undulating, and as a rule tame in its scenery, exhibiting only thinly timbered grassy lands, with all the appearance of open parks. The north-west corner of the colony, equally flat, is dry and sometimes sandy, and frequently bare of vegetation, though in one part some seven or eight millions of acres are covered with the dense brushwood known as “mallee scrub.” This wide western plain is slightly broken in two places. In the south the wild ranges of Cape Otway are covered over a considerable area with richly luxurious but almost impassable forests. This district has been reserved as a state forest and its coast forms a favourite holiday resort, the scenery being very attractive. The middle of the plain is crossed by a thin line of mountains, known as the Australian Pyrenees, at the western extremity of which there are several irregularly placed transverse ranges, the chief being the Grampians, the Victoria Range and the Sierra Range. Their highest point is Mount William (3600 feet). The eastern half of the colony is wholly different. Though there is plenty of level land, it occurs in small patches, and chiefly in the south, in Gippsland, which extends from Corner Inlet to Cape Howe. But a great part of this eastern half is occupied with the complicated mass of ranges known collectively as the Australian Alps. The whole forms a plateau averaging from 1000 to 2000 ft. high, with many smaller tablelands ranging from 3000 to 5000 ft. in height. The highest peak, Bogong, is 6508 ft. in altitude. The ranges are so densely covered with vegetation that it is extremely difficult to penetrate them. About fifteen peaks over 5000 ft. in height have been measured. Along the ranges grow the giant trees for which Victoria is famous. The narrow valleys and gullies contain exquisite scenery, the rocky streams being overshadowed by groves of graceful tree-ferns, from amid whose waving fronds rise the tall smooth stems of the white gums. Over ten millions of acres are thus covered with forest-clad mountains which in due time will become a very valuable asset of the state. The Australian Alps are connected with the Pyrenees by a long ridge called the Dividing Range (1500 to 3000 ft. high).
Victoria is fairly well watered, but its streams are generally too small to admit of navigation. This, however, is not the case with the Murray river. The Murray for a distance of Rivers. 670 m. (or 1250 m. if its various windings be followed) forms the boundary between New South Wales and Victoria; it receives a number of tributaries from the Victorian side. The Mitta Mitta, which rises in the heart of the Australian Alps, is 150 m. long. The Ovens, rising among the same mountains, is slightly shorter. The Goulburn (340 m.) flows almost entirely through well-settled agricultural country, and is deep enough to be used in its lower part for navigation. The valley of this river is a fertile grain-producing district. The Campaspe (150 m.) has too little volume of water to be of use for navigation; its valley is also agricultural, and along its banks there lie a close succession of thriving townships. The Loddon (over 200 m.) rises in the Pyrenees. The upper part flows through a plain, to the right agricultural and to the left auriferous, containing nearly forty thriving towns, including Bendigo (formerly named Sandhurst) and Castlemaine. In the lower part of the valley the soil is also fertile, but the rainfall is small. To the west of the Loddon is the Avoca river with a length of 140 m.; it is of slight volume, and though it flows towards the Murray it loses itself in marshes and salt lagoons before reaching that river.
The rivers which flow southwards into the ocean are numerous. The Snowy river rises in New South Wales, and in Victoria flows entirely through wild and almost wholly unoccupied territory.
