1 3 o AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



character. Thirty miles from Sydney is the Nepean, the water-level of which is at this 

 point not more than eighty feet above the high-tide mark of Port Jackson. Across 

 the river lies a short plain backed by a steep, densely-timbered slope of sandstone rocks. 

 This is the beginning of the Blue Mountains. The railway climbs the escarpment by 

 a zig-zag, achieving in this way an ascent of nearly a thousand feet. The traveller as 

 he rises gets a view of a lovely landscape a rich plain with a river sauntering through 

 it ; enclosed farms with their variegated patches of different crops ; settlers' homes 

 scattered irregularly about ; beyond, the half-cleared paddocks, mostly devoted to cattle- 

 grazing ; and in the distance the white houses of the elevated suburbs of Sydney, and 

 the wreathed smoke from the many steamers passing up and down the coast. 



Once on the top of the Zig-zag the traveller is' at the beginning of a great plateau 

 of sandstone rock. The material of which it is composed is believed to be the detritus 

 of an older rock deposited here long after the coal-seams had been laid in their beds. 

 The general opinion is that this sand was deposited in water, but the Rev. J. E. 

 Tenison-Woods has urged strong reasons in favour of its all being wind-blown. In any 

 case, it was submerged, and covered with the same Wainamatta shale that overspreads 

 the Sydney Plains. It was then re-lifted and mostly denuded of its shale covering, which 

 remains in only one or two places to tell the tale. This sandstone has been deeply 

 furrowed, so that it now consists of ridges and gorges. Here and there the trap-rock 

 has burst through, as at Mount Tomah, Mount Hay, Mount King George and Mount 

 Wilson, and the generally sterile soil is suddenly exchanged for rich land densely 

 covered with forest-trees, giant ferns, and a thick jungle of matted vines and creepers. 

 Across these mountains the line taken by the road, and followed by the railway line, 

 keeps to the ridge that separates the valleys of the Grose on the north side, and the 

 Cox on the south. This ridge is very circuitous, and rises regularly all the way to 

 Blackheath. On either side are to be seen lateral spurs and the valleys between them, 

 the scenery having some variety, but at the same time preserving a general sameness. 

 The road and railway line cross and re-cross each other, for the riclge is in places very 

 narrow, and nowhere does it attain any considerable breadth. These mountains are now 

 becoming the great sanatorium of Sydney. The railroad rises from the plains con- 

 tinuously till an elevation of three thousand eight hundred feet is reached, and there 

 are stations every few miles. This gives a special value to these mountains as a health- 

 resort, because invalids can choose their elevation to suit their taste or their complaint. 



At Wentworth begins the great waterfall country, for here the valleys are deeper, 

 and the hill-sides are more abrupt. In dry weather the quantity of water falling over 

 the rock-edges dwindles to small proportions, as the gathering-ground is so small. But 

 though the views are mostly named from the falls, the real grandeur of the scenery lies 

 in the valleys, where depth and distance deceive from their very magnitude, and where 

 the sombre hue of the gum-forests, far down below and beyond, contrasts with the 

 bright colour of the cliffs reddened with iron-stone stains. " The Great Falls," which bear 

 appropriately the name of that famed Australian who was among the first to cross their 

 water-shed, make a descent in three successive cascades of a thousand feet, having at 

 their base a tall point, which from above seems but a bank of moss half-hidden by the 

 mist of the broken water. At Katoomba there is one great fall, a sheer drop of two 



