Q74 R. H. CAMBAGE. 
These latter remarks apply to the basaltic lands of the 
Richmond River, while on the tableland of New England 
to the westward, with the same class of rock in many 
places, but a much lower rainfall, and a cooler climate, the 
country is open forest. Many more similar examples could 
be quoted. 
This goes to show the highly important bearing which 
topography, in regulating aspects and climate, exercises 
on the native flora, and it furnishes examples in nature 
which might profitably be considered in connection with 
agricultural and forestry matters. 
Geocols.—In their valuable work on “‘The Climate and 
Weather of Australia,’ (p. 24), Messrs. Hunt, Taylor and 
Quayle refer to five geocols, or low gaps across the mountain 
ranges of New South Wales and Victoria, and which receive 
a lower rainfall than that of the surrounding hills, and itis 
by studying the floras of these geocols and contrasting them 
with those of the higher mountain chain that we are able 
to more fully appreciate the marked effect of this higher 
land in differentiating the floras on either side of it, which 
effect is interrupted, and in some cases wholly removed at 
the points where the geocols cross the main chain. It is 
instructive to briefly discuss some of the features of these 
geocol fioras as resulting from climatic influences which 
are largely produced from the local topography. The first 
thing to decide is which influence dominates, the coastal 
or inland. Here again the natural law of the cooling or 
ascending cloud chiefly precipitating the rain has to be 
considered, and while all along the high mountain slopes 
facing the ocean there is a good rainfall, the absence of a 
high range across the geocol, reduces the precipitation 
from the ocean side with the result that in every case where 
the gap is a low one, it is the inland or drier influence which 
dominates, with the result that the moisture-loving, coast 
