50 -NEW HOLLAND IN EUROPE. 
Holland may be likened to an old man, rather than to a child; it 
does not begin to breathe and to live; on the contrary, it has lived 
and tolled, and is tottering towards the grave. This is indicated, 
not only in its flora and fiiuna, but also in the geological pecu- 
liarities of the countiy. None of the newer formations, so widely dif- 
fused over Europe, cover its extensive primitive rocks ; and its older 
deposits, principally consisting of layers of carboniferous sandstone 
and porphyry, are horizontal and undisturbed. No revolutions have 
swept over its surfiice since it rose from the ocean ; and for that 
reason the greater portion of the coimtry still looks most like the bot- 
tom of the sea.* On the other hand, there is a phenomenon plainly 
indicating that the country has done playing its part, and must now 
prepare for vast changes. The whole of New Holland is suiTounded 
by coral reefs, those buildings of sinister Naiades, which slowdy but 
surely drag their victims to their watery habitation. It is known that 
these reef-bnllding corals grow only in considerable masses where the 
ground is gradually sinking. If there were no other sign, these coral- 
banks surrounding the continent and islands would point to changes 
in the level; and, from what the smaller Polynesian islands already 
have undergone, the future of New Holland, viz. a dissolution of the 
continent into groups of islands, might be predicted. But the entire 
condition of the country, the desert-like character of the interior, tlie 
great number of salt-lakes, the rivers terminating in swamps, etc., in- 
dicate an approaching geological change, which, however — let the 
settlers take comfort — may not take place for some thousands of years. 
However, this much is certain — New Holland has played out its part 
in the physical history of the world. 
How at one time it acted in Europe, covered and fertilized the soil, 
prepared it for further development, and brought as it were that newly- 
born continent into the society of the others, and thus commenced 
its history, would be points worth considering if the necessary data 
* Ch. Start's ' Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia,' etc., 
vol. 1. p. 80, describing the country about Darling, says :— "The central space 
forms a large basin, in wliich there are stunted Pines and Eucalyptus shrub, 
amid huge fragments of rocks. It rises Hke an island from the midst of the 
ocean, and as I looked npon it from the plains below, I could, without anv 
stretch of the imagination, picture to myself that it really was such. Bold and 
precipitous, it oulj wanted the sea to lave its base ; and I cannot but think 
that sucli must at no very remote period have been the case, and that the im- 
mense fl:it we have been traversing is of comparatively recent formation." 
