Corner, and at Cooloodee. It is about fifty miles due-east of Adelaide, and about 35° south latitude, and 139° 20′ east longitude. I found it while making my surveys for the direct eastern line of railway from Adelaide to the River Murray (see Council Paper, No. 47, September 10th, 1858, S. A.).
The River Murray and its tributaries drain an immense district in New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia, discharging itself into the Lake Alexandria in South Australia; thence to the sea it is navigable for 1500 miles.
[Our readers are referred also to the Journal of the Geological Society, No. 63, August, 1860, pages 252–261, for some account of the geology of the South-Australian district above referred to.—Edit. Geologist.]
CORRESPONDENCE.
The Accumulation of Cave Deposits.
Dear Sir,—Without offering any opinion on the Rev. H. Eley's speculation, in the December Number of the Geologist, on the mode of "The Accumulation of Cave Deposits," I presume it is quite safe to conclude that it could only apply, at most, to caverns which were inhabited by animals.
Now, though we have satisfactory evidence that some caverns—Kent's Hole near this place, for example—were the homes of carnivora, others, and some of them very famous, are entirely destitute of any such indications, whilst their distinctly stratified deposits were certainly due to the long-continued action of water.
Amongst the numerous caves near the sea-level which occur in the limestone cliffs between Berry Head and Mudstone Bay, near Brixham, there is one into which the sea only enters at spring-tide high-water, or during very heavy gales. It is only accessible from the sea, and is situated at the apex of a small cove, the mouth of which is a passage, probably about twenty feet wide, between two walls of limestone; within it is somewhat wider. Except at high-water, a small, steep, terraced, shingle beach lies between the sea and the mouth of the cavern. The cove is simply a gallery, at least eighty feet long, about four feet wide, in some places not more than three feet high, but commonly high enough for a man to stand erect. In fact, it is nothing more than one of the north and south joints, or lines of fracture, so common in the district, eroded into a tunnel.
A considerable drip of water, apparently free from earthy matter, enters through the roof.
When recently visiting it, I found the floor, consisting of fine sea sand, more or less covered with fresh seaweed, which was most abundant at the inner end. About halfway in, I picked up several disjoined bones, probably parts of the same animal, undoubtedly a terrestrial mammal, and, judging from the state of the epiphyses, a young individual. I have still some of them by me. With one exception they are quite free from all marks of abrasion.
The sea had also carried in some evidences of the existence of man;
