MOUNTAINS AND THEIR EFFECT ON NATIVE VEGETATION. 279 
parting near Jericho, the flora consists almost wholly 
of western types, and owing to the absence of any high 
mountain between this point and the coast, some members 
of the western or interior flora follow the consequent drier 
atmosphere to within at least twenty miles of the ocean, 
Acacia harpophylla, Hucalyptus microtheca and EH. populi- 
folia (Bimble Box) being found in the suburbs of Rock- 
hampton, while Casuarina Cambagei (Belah, regarded as 
C. lepidophloia by Mr. Maiden) is growing to the westward, 
and also in the village of Marmor to the southward. 
Eremophila Mitchelli (Budtha or Sandalwood) occurs 
between Marmor and Raglan, and Casuarina Luehmanni 
near Rodd’s Bay platform between Gladstone and Bunda- 
berg. ) 
A similar invasion of some western plants on to the. 
eastern watershed takes place at various places north of 
Jericho as the Main Divide is comparatively low, and also 
between Hughenden and Townsville, the highest portion of 
the railway between these points being only slightly over 
1,800 feet. 
Near Cairns, the Main Divide approaches to within about 
twenty tothirty miles of the coastline, but presents a steep 
face to the ocean, so that the eastern or moist atmosphere, 
which is intensified by Bellenden Ker and Bartle Frere 
Mountains acting as condensers and inducing abnormal 
rainfalls, is restricted to the coastal belt, the result being 
a brush or jungle flora on the eastern side and open forest 
on the western. 
Summary. 
A study of the topography of EKastern Australia and of 
the distribution of the native flora along and on each side 
of the mountain range which forms the Main Divide, serves 
to show that the two classes of climate, moist and dry, 
produced on each side of this mountain chain, are not so 
