﻿Wellington Philosophical Society. 365 



On the western side we liave the granitic and metamorpliic range of 

 Western Australia. 



On the eastern side the great cordillera, consisting of granites, upper 

 sihirian rocks, and carboniferous sandstones of great thickness, containing 

 valuable seams of coal. 



In the centre of the south-west the South Australian group of palseozoic 

 slates and sandstones. 



Mesozoic rocks are not extensively found, unless a large part of the 

 carboniferous rocks of New South Wales and Queensland should prove to be 

 of triassic age. 



The coal rocks of Victoria are triassic, and occupy a considerable area of 

 that colony. 



Professor McCoy has examined cretaceous fossils from the centre of 

 Australia. 



Marine tertiary rocks occupy a large portion of the interior. 



Although trap rocks are found extensively in Australia, appearing to 

 have broken through the sandstones in extensive sheets, no true sub-aerial 

 craters have been discovered, except in Victoria, and there are no known 

 active craters of eruption in Australia. 



In considering these features of the different divisions of Australia in 

 detail, the peculiar formation of the mountains, the remarkable features of the 

 rivers, and the distinctive characters of the bush land, are very clearly des- 

 cribed. Slight sketches, brief outlines of the explorations of Sturt and others 

 into the interior and across the " island continent " to the Gulf of Carpentaria, 

 are given ; while a short account of a journey from Sydney to Adelaide in 

 1832, gives a direct personal interest to the paper, which concludes with the 

 following contrast between Australia and New Zealand : — 



" The most obvious contrast between Australia and New Zealand is that the 

 former everywhere gives a nearly horizontal outline, while the aspect of the 

 latter is towards bhe vertical. Consequently, in Australia the mountains are 

 generally without grandeur, while New Zealand possesses some of the grandest, 

 and at the same time the most varied mountain scenery in the world. Pic- 

 turesque beauty in Australia is generally caused by rock scenery — scarps of 

 sandstone, or huge bosses of granite, when they break the unifoi-mity of the 

 visual nearly le^'el surface, have a pleasing effect. In the canons of the Grove 

 and the Cox, where deep valleys have been eroded from the sandstone, bounded 

 by cliffs of great height, we have grand and wild effect, but caiions must be 

 sought for ; they do not strike the eye of a traveller as he passes through the 

 country, and nine-tenths of the inhabitants of Sydney, although they daily see 

 the Blue Mountains in the not very far distance, have never seen these deep 

 and gloomy valleys, and hardly know of their existence. The open forest of 



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