Physical Features.

6. Victoria is traversed, with more or less regularity, throughout its entire length from east to west by a chain of mountains and lesser hills, completely dividing it into two parts, and known as the Dividing Range. The summit of this range runs generally at a distance of 60 or 70 miles from the coast. The streams to the north of it flow towards the River Murray, and those to the south of it towards the sea. The eastern part of the range, which divides the Gippsland District from that of the Murray, is named the Australian Alps; and that part which separates the County of Ripon from that of Borung, and extends into the County of Kara Kara, is named the Pyrenees. The higher peaks of the Dividing Range are covered with snow for several months in the year. The mountainous country is for the most part densely wooded to the very summits with fine timber, but the peaks above the winter snow line are quite bare, or only partially covered with dwarfed trees or shrubs. From near Kilmore eastward, a distance of 200 miles, the mountains are generally so steep and inaccessible as to present a considerable barrier between the parts of the colony north and south of them, and they can only be traversed with great labour by the few passes that exist. From Kilmore westward the range rapidly dwindles, so that, although presenting in places points of considerable height—such as Mount William and Mount Macedon—it is easily crossed. From Mount Macedon it becomes, as it stretches away to the Western District, a chain of hills, in parts only of considerable altitude, and offering no serious obstructions to crossing in very many places. That portion of the Murray basin commencing at Wodonga on the east as a point, and extending in the form of a regular triangle to a width of 200 miles along the western boundary of Victoria, has almost a flat surface, with a very slight inclination towards the Murray. The remaining country north and south of the Dividing Range and its spurs is moderately undulating; it is in some parts destitute of timber, but closely wooded in others.