BY PROJESSOR STEPHENS, M.A. 551 



"Wallerawang Coal measures come in, but in a very fragmentary 

 manner. Several seams are visible here and there, but are 

 apparently not of much commercial importance. Last of all the 

 Hawkesbury Sandstone tops the series, rising in a lofty and 

 solitary crest over the highest point of the road (at Blackman's 

 Crown) and giving the ridge its picturesque designation. 

 Denudation has in most places so lowered the level of the water- 

 shed that only the Marangaroo Beds are left, as at the Station, 

 and generally along the road. In some places we see the G-rits 

 appearing as terraces, and the Upper Shales forming peaks at the 

 uneroded extremities of the spurs which branch eastward from 

 the main range. But only at Blackman's Crown do we find the 

 superincumbent coal measures with their Hawkesbury capping 

 preserved. 



If at this point we turn to the west, the view sweeps over the 

 dark and monotonous forests of the Turon, stretching away 

 range after range to the horizon. If we turn to the east, we see 

 beneath our feet a continuation of the same rocks, forming with 

 a series of similar though less formidable ridges, the general 

 bottom of the Coco basin. In the distance a level formation 

 may be seen quite beyond and below this rugged country, while 

 the whole landscape is enclosed with an apparently continuous 

 rampart of vertical walls of rosy sandstone, from the foot 

 of which a forest covered slope gradually descends to the floor 

 of the valley. This slope, though sometimes perhaps only a 

 talus, often betrays indications of the beds which compose it, 

 and which appear to correspond to the series above described as 

 occurring beneath the Hawkesbury rocks at Blackman's Crown. 

 The valley is extensive, and appears to widen out to the northward 

 beneath perpendicular cliffs at a distance of from 15 to 20 

 miles. 



Crown ridge is in fact a very narrow causeway formed by 

 Nature's engineering over an impassable labyrinth of rocky 

 gullies. Neither road nor railway can deviate. A few minutes' 



