1836.] 



A'eelgherries and Koondahs. 



281 



reached the brim where I was standing. I walked along the edge of 

 this escarpment, until I came to the huge peak-like mass of rock, a few- 

 hundred yards from the foot of the highest Sispara summit, which 

 stands like a battlement on a wall. The view from this point is really 

 magnificent, particularly that of the gigantic amphitheatre to the right, 

 the termination of the Koondahs on this side. It is very striking to 

 look at this stupendous semicircular recess, formed by enormously lofty 

 mountains, the summits of which rise vertically to thousands of feet, 

 and whose abrupt sides are deeply corroded by ravines and chasms, 

 down which small but romantic cascades precipitate themselves, adding 

 to the magnificence of this stupendous scenery. 



The extraordinary chasm called the Devil's Gap is situated nearly in 

 the centre of this semicircle, which however, from the place where I 

 stood, was not visible, but a little further on it must be so, and then the 

 romantic mountain-picture would be complete. 



The rocks of all these declivities, as far as the battlement-like mass, 

 are. granite, composed of the three usual minerals (No. 14S). The 

 composition, however, in some blocks varies, and in others the texture ; 

 the rock becoming fine-grained, which alternates, as if in strata, with 

 the coarse-grained species. In this rock, when decomposed, the felspar 

 assumes a very scabrous, cancellated structure, somewhat similar to 

 trachyte, but the quartz remains unchanged, the mica decomposing 

 into an ochreous substance (No. 149). It is not an unfrequent occur- 

 rence for mica to be contained, in this granite in nests, besides the 

 portion of it disseminated through the substance of the rock, and which 

 forms an essential constituent of it (No. 150). 



"We ought not to overlook a most important circumstance in this 

 granitic district, which is that, although the rock is decomposing, it 

 does not form red earth, or lithomargic mould, but a reddish sandy soil; 

 and on these hills, whether basaltic or granitic, although having here and 

 there a stunted kind of vegetation, long rushes alone thrive, and those 

 only in protected places. They have none of the rounded contour of 

 those hills the rock of which, containing a good deal of hornblende, 

 when decomposed, covers them with a thick stratum of lithomargic 

 earth. 



The next excursion was to the Gap, which is hardly four miles from 

 Sispara. The lower part of this chasm is nearly level with the road 

 which passes close to it. The rocks forming its walls are inaccessible, 

 and it is therefore difficult to say what is the width of the Gap ; but it 

 may be about a hundred yards, since the place where we sat, a little in 

 the rear, and w^hich is wider, was about a hundred and fifty yards. 



The view from this Gap calls to mind the mode painters adopt to look 

 at a landscape to advantage, whether a natural or artificial one ; that is 

 to say, by placing the open hands to the temples to form a vista, or by 



