Of a Country on the Climate. 207 
rather to distinct characters of geological structure and con- 
figuration than to unmodified solar influence. First, withregard 
to configuration: let us suppose a complete change in the whole 
of the features of the country. If, instead of the Great 
Dividing Range, there were a chain of mountains extend- 
ing from Cape Otway northwards for 500 or 700 miles, with 
an altitude of 14,000 or 16,000 feet, which is far above the 
line of perpetual snow in these latitudes, as they are circum- 
stanced, we should have corresponding alterations in the 
course and extent of the rivers, some of which might, in the 
discharge of their waters, rival the lesser streams of Russia 
or America. The lower currents of air, flowing from the 
south, highly charged with moisture, would be condensed as 
they approached the snow-clad heights, and copious showers 
of rain would fall at all seasons of the year. Hot winds 
would be unknown. In winter we should have ice on the 
rivers very near the level of the sea. The results of such a 
change in the features of the country would extend to the 
neighbouring islands, and the snowy height of Mount Erebus, 
with the vast extent of land lying around the Antarctic 
circle might not be unaffected.* 
But let us suppose another change, equally great, of 
a different character. I have previously described this country 
as being low and level, with extensive plains and chains of 
hills of inconsiderable height. By a modification of the 
formative causes producing such results, the whole extent of 
Victoria might have been raised gradually and evenly to the 
present elevation of its plains. Instead of the contorted 
shales and sandstones, and the protruding Plutonic rocks, we 
we might have had a series of perfectly horizontal strata. 
Instead of the gulleys and ranges, the diversity of hill and 
plain, the result of this would be a level tract of sandy waste, 
without one hill to break the dreary monotony of the outline. 
The present rivers and creeks would be replaced by swamps 
and lakes of fresh and brackish, and salt water, fully exposed 
to the intense solar heat of these latitudes. Vegetation not 
* It is, perhaps, necessary to state, that the effect here spoken of would tend 
to moderate the intense cold of the Antartic regions. Very high lands, in 
Australia, would radiate solar heat over an immense space, while high lands 
much farther south would lower the temperature very sensibly. 
+ This is not a violent supposition. The Silurian strata in Russia are inva- 
riably horizontal. Sir R. I. Murchison has ably explained the geological struc- 
ture of that vast country, and he particularly mentions the recurrence of plains 
of paleozoic formations—the strata being horizontal.—See Murchison’s Siluria, 
pp. 16, 19, 322, 323. 
