522 NEW SOUTH WALES. 
this distant epoch, when dry land was just emerging, and vast areas 
of shallow fresh and marine waters must have existed as the conti- 
nents rose slowly from the sea, we might infer that the vegetation 
would have corresponded to the period, and that quantities of floating 
plants would have existed, far exceeding those of any subsequent era. 
This hypothesis is far less incredible than the opposite. Tor these 
immense areas capable of growing plants, as existing facts show,* 
would otherwise have been a waste. ‘The Author of Nature teaches 
us in his works not only that the resources of his power are boundless, 
but also that a wise system of economy has ever been involved in his 
plan of creation. 
The annual and decennial floods may have aided in producing the 
variety of effects before us in New Holland. In addition, the country 
was undergoing a gradual subsidence. By this means, regions that 
at one time would have been reached only by the quiet waters during 
* Since the above views were written out, I have observed the following interesting 
facts observed by Prof. Royle, (Rep. Brit. Assoc. for 1846, p. 75.) 
«Among the various subjects, Dr. Royle stated, to which he might draw attention, 
was the thick vegetation which clothes the surface of the lakes of India. Dr. Royle 
stated that he himself having been chiefly in the north of India, had not seen this vegeta- 
tion to the extent in which it existed in the more southern parts of India; but even there 
it was sufficiently to support numbers of the small Gralla, and among them the Chinese 
Jacana. But having on one occasion been detained on the banks of some of these lakes 
on the northwest of Bengal, he had been much struck with the thick and varied vegeta- 
tion of the floating masses with which their surfaces were covered. These consist of 
numerous stems, leaf and flower-stalks of a variety of plants closely interlaced and mat- 
ted together, the younger parts, requiring both light and air for the performance of their 
functions, finding their way to the surface; while the older are pushed downward, when 
the more herbaceous parts decay. Among these plants are most of the genera and some 
of the species even which are found in similar situations in Europe, but with them such 
plants as Auschynomene aspera, with its thick cellular stem, Convolvulus edulis, Herpes- 
tes Monniera, and Utricularia stellaris, Marsilea quadrifoha, Trapa bispinosa and 
bicornis, with species of Polygonum, and Dysophilla verticillata. The last is peculiarly 
interesting from its long jointed and striated stem with its whorls of leaves. Of most of 
them it may be observed that they have little or no root; the floating stems are long and 
slender, very cellular, with the vascular bundles arranged around the circumference with 
little or nothing like bark. By Dr. Buchanan Hamilton these lakes have been seen of 
much greater extent and covered with a much more dense vegetation, so much so, that 
he described the floating masses to be sufficiently substantial for cattle to graze upon the 
grasses with which they became covered, but that occasionally some fall through and are 
lost. He describes, moreover, some bushes and trees as growing in the midst of the 
water, and among them a Rose, a Barringtonia, and a Cephalanthus.” 
Dr. Royle continues by applying these facts to explaining the formation of coal. 
