GKEAT VALLEYS. 225 



about one thousand feet in depth. Other similar 

 cases might have been added. 



The first impression on seeing the correspond- 

 ence of the horizontal strata on each side of these 

 valleys and great amphitheatrical depressions is, 

 that they have been hollowed out, like other val- 

 leys, by. the action of water; but when one reflects 

 on the enormous amount of stone which, on this 

 view, must have been removed through inere gor- 

 ges or chasms, one is led to ask whether these 

 spaces may not have subsided ; but, considering 

 the form of the iiregularly branching valleys, and 

 of the naiTow promontories projecting into them 

 from the platforms, we are compelled to abandon 

 this notion. To attribute these hollows to the 

 present alluvial action would be preposterous ; nor 

 does the drainage from the summit-level always 

 fall, as I remarked near the Weatherboard, into 

 the head of these valleys, but into one side of their 

 bay-like recesses. Some of the inhabitants re- 

 marked to me that they never viewed one of those 

 bay-like recesses, with the headlands receding on 

 both hands, without being struck with their resem- 

 blance to a bold sea-coast. This is certainly the 

 case ; moreover, on the 23resent coast of New 

 South Wales, the numerous fine, widely-branching 

 harbours, which ai'e generally connected with the 

 sea by a narrow mouth worn through the sand- 

 stone coast-cliffs, varying from one mile in width 

 to a quarter of a mile, present a likeness, though 

 on a miniature scale, to the great valleys of the in- 

 terior. But then immediately occurs the startling 

 difficulty, why has the sea worn out these great, 

 though circumscribed depressions on a wide plat- 

 form, and left mere gorges at the openings, through 

 which the whole vast amount of triturated matter 

 must have been carried away 1 The onlv light I 

 11. 1-5 



