BY DR. JAMES COX. 199 



west, and about a mile from the top of the hill good water is to 

 be found. 



Ascending this creek for about a mile, the path turns sharply 

 to the left, on to the crest of the ridge. Special attention should 

 be paid to this point, as from not observing it on our return, but 

 continuing straight on, some of us were benighted, and found 

 ourselves in difficulties. The path from this turn is plain for 

 about three miles, when another creek is made, which bears well 

 away to the left, leading you to an old sheep station, called 

 Telegang station. Continuing a westerly course across the 

 cleared patch of land, you take the path which leads from the 

 angle formed by the right bank of the watercourse on which the 

 station is situated and the line of cleared ground, bearing well 

 to the right for about three miles ; the character of the country 

 and vegetation then altogether alters, almost by a line of demar- 

 cation : you have, in fact, reached a limestone country, thinly 

 covered with low stunted box and cooraman. An exquisitely 

 clear stream of water is reached, with a bed of white marble 

 pebbles, which is the Wambeyan Creek. About half a mile 

 further a rocky barricade, some two hundred feet high, obstructs 

 your further progress. The stream of water runs into a large 

 archway, which is the mouth of the Wambeyan Caves. The 

 Wambeyan Creek, after a course of about two miles further, falls 

 into Marrs Forest Creek which falls into the Guinecor Creek, a 

 branch of the Wollondilly. The limestone rocks in this district 

 do not occur as a few thick beds of limestone with subordinate 

 layers of calcareous shale, but in one bold reef-like mass of some 

 hundreds of feet thick, separated in places by a few layers of 

 impure limestone, and deeply intersected by perpendicular divi- 

 sional planes through which the water percolates to form the 

 caverns. The running stream, as above mentioned, if followed to 

 this solid barrier of rocks, runs into an archway, which is the 

 real mouth of the caves, and through it you enter the first of a 

 succession of caverns. This special one is called the " Wambeyan 

 Church." I presume from its arched cathedral-like roof; and 

 from an absurd looking rock, accurately resembling a " parson 

 in his pulpit," with his book, bibs, and scarf the remains of an 

 enormous stalagmite. This cavern attracts special attention, as 



