468 NEW SOUTH WALES chap. 



great though circumscribed depressions on a wide platform, 

 and left mere gorges at the openings, through which the whole 

 vast amount of triturated matter must have been carried away? 

 The only light I can throw upon this enigma, is by remarking 

 that banks of the most irregular forms appear to be now form- 

 ing in some seas, as in parts of the West Indies and in the 

 Red Sea, and that their sides are exceedingly steep. Such 

 banks, I have been led to suppose, have been formed by 

 sediment heaped by strong currents on an irregular bottom. 

 That in some cases the sea, instead of spreading out sediment 

 in a uniform sheet, heaps it round submarine rocks and islands, 

 it is hardly possible to doubt, after examining the charts of the 

 West Indies ; and that the waves have power to form high and 

 precipitous cliffs, even in land-locked harbours, I have noticed 

 in many parts of South America. To apply these ideas to the 

 sandstone platforms of New South Wales, I imagine that the 

 strata were heaped by the action of strong currents, and of the 

 undulations of an open sea, on an irregular bottom ; and that 

 the valley-like spaces thus left unfilled had their steeply sloping 

 flanks worn into cliffs during a slow elevation of the land ; the 

 worn-down sandstone being removed, either at the time when 

 the narrow gorges were cut by the retreating sea, or subsequently 

 by alluvial action. 



Soon after leaving the Blackheath, we descended from the 

 sandstone platform by the pass of Mount Victoria. To effect 

 this pass, an enormous quantity of stone has been cut through ; 

 the design, and its manner of execution, being worthy of any 

 line of road in England. We now entered upon a country less 

 elevated by nearly a thousand feet, and consisting of granite. 

 With the change of rock, the vegetation improved ; the trees 

 were both finer and stood farther apart ; and the pasture 

 between them was a little greener and more plentiful. At 

 Hassan's Walls I left the high-road, and made a short detour 

 to a farm called Walerawang ; to the superintendent of which 

 I had a letter of introduction from the owner in Sydney. Mr. 

 Browne had the kindness to ask me to stay the ensuing day, 

 which I had much pleasure in doing. This place offers an 

 example of one of the large farming, or rather sheep-grazing, 

 establishments of the colony. Cattle and horses are, however, 



