300 H. I, JENSEN. 
Bateman’s Bay. The entire area encompassed by the 
headwaters of these streams is very poor, sandy and stony 
country, useless for agricultural and pastoral purposes, 
with the exception ofa few basaltic ridges of small extent. 
In spring an abundance of wild flowers lends a more inviting 
appearance to the landscape. Here and there occur large 
swampy tracts either destitute of arboreal vegetation or 
supporting a variety of shrubs—teatrees and other myrtace- 
ous plants. Here and there occurs a huge floor of bare 
rock, swept clean of all traces of soil by wind and rain. 
Often these bare tracts show a rude columnar jointing 
which, however, only penetrates an upper layer of rock a 
foot or two in thickness. Whether this structure is due to 
the action of weathering and the heat of the summer sun, 
or to the removal of a former basalt sheet I am not pre- 
pared to say, but I am inclined to the latter supposition. 
The country rock is sandstone of Upper Marine age. Similar 
barren country extends all the way from Sassafras to the 
coastal fringe of alluvium. 
The Sassafras tableland in which the Clyde River, the 
Ettrema Creek and the Danjera Creek take their rise, has 
an average height of over 2,000 feet, and is on the Nowra- 
Nerriga Road, 5 or 6 miles wide. On the eastern side it 
falls sharply about 300 feet, and on the western side it falls 
even more abruptly about 500 to 600 feet. Both slopes 
present a somewhat facetted appearance, especially the 
western one. The gorges cut through the surface covering 
of Upper Marine sandstone and deeply dissect the under- 
lying folded strata. 
Further south, between Nelligen and Braidwood, the 
ascent to the dividing range from the coastal side is also 
gradual, and the fall on the western side to the plains 
sudden. Here the Upper Marine sandstones have been 
removed by denudation, but the processes which formed 
