460 



tain crumpling, but each lias been raised bodily without 

 visible flexure of the rock dips. The main Australian up- 

 lifts have not altered the dips of the Triassic and Permo- 

 Carhoiiiferous rocks to a greater extent than one degree. 1 

 In Fiji, Tonga, and other islands, the uplifts have been 

 vertical. In New Zealand also the great height of the 

 Alps is the result of vertical uplift to form sub-horizontal 

 l>latt-;uis. Descriptions <.f New (iuinea, Java, and Timor, 

 indicate that such also has been the case in those regions. 

 The stage of plateau dissection attained by the streams of 

 New Zealand, Tasmania and other places in this Austral- 

 asian region is almost identical. In the case of New 

 Zealand the streams have breached the Main Divide in 

 places, but this later youth of dissection is due to the 

 accentuation of erosive activities by the greater uplift of 

 the land, the short steep runs of the streams to the sea, 

 the enormous amount both of precipitation and of erosive 

 action of the late Pleistocene Glaciers. Descriptions of 

 New Guinea topography by Mr. C. Hedley during conver- 

 sation with the writer also indicates that this enormous 

 island was uplifted during the " Kosciusko" or "Plateau" 

 Period of Eastern Australia. 



It will thus be seen from mechanical considerations that 

 at the close of the Tertiary Period the whole of Malayasia 

 and the Great Australasian Region were elevated, the 

 Malavasian area along one set of curves 2 and the Austra- 

 lasian along another. At an earlier period an actual 

 formation of Alpine chains by the compression of strata 

 occurred in New Guinea, Fiji, New Zealand and other 

 places along the lines of the present mountain ranges, 

 but the highlands of io-day owe their existence to faults 

 and gentle warpings, which although onlv <»!' very small 



