168 AUSTRALIAN VEGETATION. 
open Eucalyptus country, or the treeless or partly scrubby tracts are 
eligible, it must be of significance that the fall of rain occurs with fre- 
quency during the hottest part of the year. Hence, during the sum- 
mer, grass and herbage is pushing forth with extraordinary rapidity . 
and exuberance ; while a judicious burning at the cooler season, toge- 
ther with the effect of regular dews, is certain to produce fresh forage 
during the drier months. An almost endless variety of perennial 
nutritious grasses, allied to Indian species, or even identical with them, 
are known to exist. The basaltic downs of the north and north-west 
produce almost precisely the same vegetation which has rendered 
Darling and Peak downs so famed in the east. This almost absolute 
identity of plants is a sufficient indication of great similarity of cli- 
mate, for which the rise of the country, though one not very consider- 
able, to some extent may account. On the ranges which divide the 
waters of the east coast from those of Carpentaria, the vine luxuriates ; 
its fruit indeed suffers occasionally from frost. 
How far the tracts south of the more littoral northern country may 
continue to bear jfrevailingly the feature of fertility cannot be predi- 
cated. There can be no greater fallacy than to prejudge an un tra- 
versed country — a fallacy to which explorers are prone, and which, in 
some instances, has retarded advancement of geographical discoveries 
and of new locations of permanent abodes, while, in other instances, n 
has led to disastrous consequences. A country should be judged with 
caution. Even from elevations comparatively inconsiderable, such as 
are generally met with away from the eastern coast, the orb of vision is 
limited. A traveller may, buoyant with hope, commence his new daily 
conquest on the delightful natural lawns or the verdant slopes of a 
trap formation ; and before many hours' ride he may, to his dismay 
be brought without water to a bivouac between the sand waves of de- 
composing barren rocks. But as suddenly a few hours' perseverance 
may bring him again into geological regions of fertility when he least 
expected it ; smiling landscapes may again burst on his view, and he may 
establish his next camp beside limpid water, sufficient for the require- 
ments of a future city. The nature of a country is not ruled by climate 
and latitude alone, but quite as much, if not more, by its geological 
structure. Glancing on the map of an unexplored country, we are ap 
i 
to take the former alone for a guide in our conjectures, until the latter 
by actual field operations, becomes our stronghold in topographic 
