2 XXXII. Dr. J. V. Danes: 



history a remarkable uncertainty, which must becorae very perceptible 

 to every observant reader, an uncertainty the causes of which beconie clear 

 only after a closer acquaintance with the main physiographical fea- 

 tures of the mainland. 



Agassiz had apparently not much compréhension for the modern 

 physiographical methods — though they had been flourishing espe- 

 cially in the United States since a long time — and remained like his 

 predecessors completely unaware of the striking facts which a short 

 study of the most generál features of the mainland offers to the ex- 

 planation of the évolution of the coast of Eastern Australia. 



It is or rather, it is growing to be a great victory of the mo- 

 dem physiography to háve explained the tertiary and posttertiary 

 history of Eastern Australia and the adjoining seas, to bring in accord 

 the features of the land and the seabottom and to interprete them in. 

 a reasonable, natural way. 



The unnatural position of the continental Divide on the very 

 rim of the continent between Cairns and Port Douglas, where the 

 „Dividing Range" is formed by the uniform coastal wall of an old 

 peneplain slightly inclined to the west and abruptly dropping to the 

 eastern coast, the violent bends in the river beds, their unnatural 

 slope with waterfalls not far from the sea and many other facts, all- 

 though certainly well known to S. Kent and Agassiz, did not awake 

 in their mind any suspicion as to the real character of the changes 

 which took place along the coast in a period not very far remote. 

 That is a very interesting fact, very similar to the observation, whicli 

 Mr. Andrews *) makes about the Baron v. Mueller's and other older 

 studies on the fossil tertiary flora of Australia, A complète lack of 

 sense for the physiographical way of thinking — a very interesting 

 phaenomenon with the best scientific men of quite récent date. 



The problém of the stability ofthe coast of Northeastern Austra- 

 lia has been examined also by geólogists, as Rattray, Tennison Wood, 

 Haddon and most thorougly by Dr. R. L. Jack, who in his Geology 

 of Queensland brings a great many very important facts, which 

 form the best materiál for a thorough and convincing explanation of 

 the whole problém, but the author abstained from Publishing the 

 conclusions of the numerous and important observations, although 

 he was and is certainly the man, who did and does know and un- 

 derstand. For him, however, physiography, the description and evo- 



') Geographic.il Unity of Eastern Australia. P. -454. 



