94 A NATURALIST IN TASMANIA ch. 



of coarse grass and sedge, liberally strewn with 

 boulders, stretch indefinitely into the distance, 

 with patches of rather thin gum forest here and 

 there. But after passing over the largest of these 

 plains, known as the Skittleballs, — where we were 

 lucky in noticing the tracks of a cart that had 

 recently gone through as otherwise the track was 

 non-existent in many places — the plateau begins 

 to fall away and to be broken up by irregular 

 ridges or tiers, much more abrupt and rugged 

 than the rolling tiers which flank the plateau on 

 the eastern approach to the Great Lake. On the 

 slopes and gullies of these steep tiers the gum 

 forests are very thick, and when we reached the 

 top of a tier known as Pine Tier, a magnificent 

 panorama was displayed in front of us utterly 

 different from the vast rolling plateau over which 

 we had passed. We looked across the deep gully 

 of the Pine River, at the rugged forest-clad moun- 

 tain ranges which fringe the westernmost border 

 of the greenstone plateau, and still beyond them 

 rose up the sharp peaks of the west coast moun- 

 tains, mountains composed of shales and schists 

 and flung into the bold fantastic shapes which 

 we associate with the European Alps. There can 

 be no doubt that this western district of Tas- 

 mania, whether we regard the bold outlines of 

 the mountain ranges or the magnificence of the 

 virgin forests which clothe their slopes, is superior 

 to anything else in the island, and perhaps in all 

 Australia. It was not till some months later that 



