NEW SOUTH WALES. 169 



in a limpid pool. This gorge opens to the westward, and looks out 

 upon a mountain range. 



Seven miles further, a descent by a similar path leads into the 

 Kangaroo Valley. This valley is nearly twenty miles in length, and 

 has an average breadth of about three miles ; it is surrounded on all 

 sides by vertical precipices, from one thousand to one thousand eight 

 hundred feet in height. 



In consequence of the aridity which has been mentioned as a 

 character of the soil about Sydney, and which is also a prevailing 

 character throughout the rest of the country, there are many con- 

 tinuous miles of waste lands, which by the inhabitants are called 

 " forests." These are very different from what we understand by the 

 term, and consist of gum trees (Eucalypti), so widely scattered that a 

 carriage may be driven rapidly through them without meeting any 

 obstruction, while the foliage of these trees is so thin and apparently 

 so dried up as scarcely to cast a shade. Thus miles may be traversed 

 in these forests without impediment. A few marshy spots are occa- 

 sionally seen, covered with thickets of brush ; and in other places there 

 are tracts so dry that even the gum tree will not grow upon them, and 

 which receive the direct and scorching rays of the sun. 



The exceptions to this general character are found in the occasional 

 rising of basalt in conical peaks. The productions of the soil where 

 this rock prevails, are in striking contrast to those of the arid lands of 

 the sandstone formations ; and the geological character of a basaltic 

 ridge can be detected at a distance by the luxuriant vegetation with 

 which it is clothed. These ridges become more and more frequent as 

 the distance from the coast increases, and are occasionally interspersed 

 with granite. 



The latter rock is first seen in the Clwyd Valley, near Mount 

 Victoria, and about eighty miles from Sydney. This valley lies in the 

 western mountain range, which separates the waters that flow towards 

 the east and west. The land falls gradually to the westward, until, in 

 the Darling Valley, at a distance of four hundred miles, it is only about 

 four hundred feet above the sea. 



For some distance beyond Mount Victoria, granite characterizes 

 some extensive ridges, and basaltic mountains are occasionally com- 

 bined with those of granite. 



Beyond Bathurst, about one hundred and twenty miles to the west 

 of Sydney, a compact limestone, in which there are many caverns, 

 occurs between ridges of granite and basalt ; but, according to Major 

 Mitchell, the sandstone reappears on proceeding further west, towards 



vol. ii. p 22 



