Studies of the Murray River have revealed that its ancestral river system is the result of three separate phases of river activity, each consisting of a degradational and aggradational sub‐phase. To illustrate the relations, certain sections of the rivers were mapped in detail revealing characteristic terrace levels for the various phases. The regional pattern shows that immediately upstream from the Cadell Fault, and for a distance of 100 miles (160 km.) downstream, tectonically induced topographical changes have separated the individual ancestral rivers representative of each phase. Elsewhere, the three rivers are superimposed and follow the same general course. This pattern of separation by diversion also applies to the present rivers so that, in the diverted sector of the river system, old floodplains occur which were deserted by the present river. Initial water logging and salting problems were restricted to these deserted floodplains where they occur in the Irrigation Districts. A relative chronology of Quaternary events has been drawn up.