Some nineteenth century commentators believed that the deposit had been described by Charles Darwin during his visit to Hobart and surrounds in 1836 as "a solitary and superficial patch of yellowish limestone or travertine, which contains numerous impressions of leaves of trees, together with land-shells, not now existing", however subsequent, more detailed descriptions that he gave of the site, lead modern commentators to infer that Darwin was in fact describing a separate, hillside outcrop in Hobart itself (in Burnett Street), no longer in existence.
