uY \v. KING.. ESQ:: 



after a most hot and fatiguing ramble (there is no shel- 

 tering jungle) up the back of a rough quartzite ridge, found 

 ourselves on the crest of the western side of the Nemilly 

 Goondum valley, about one o'clock in the day. There, 

 we saw the stream of the waterfall about a thousand feet 

 below us, but at the bottom of a most extraordinarily steep- 

 sided valley. We had lost the path, and the wonder was, 

 how to get down such a precipitous slope; nevertheless we 

 must get down, for I wanted water badly, and it would never 

 do to give up now. So, down we went, first scrambling 

 through a thin jungle of bamboo at the bottom of a little 

 ravine, then for a good distance down a sambur path ; until 

 by sliding, creeping and slipping, holding on by the way at 

 tufts of grass and bushes and avoiding the very hot rock 

 we finally got to the bottom and found ternporaiy shelter 

 under a tree, 



Hence, up the dry bed of the stream (wondering if we were 

 to see water again), round a corner of rocks and trees ; and 

 then came in view half an acre of a deep pool of water, lying 

 below a thin dribbling stream, which worked its way over 

 and down the face of one of the finest geological features I 

 have seen. Let me try and describe it. Nemilly Goondum 

 valley has been formed in a U-shaped curve or synclinal of 

 quartzite and slate beds, the slates being above the quart- 

 zites; The arms of this curve rise up on either side at 

 great angles : on the west side, at any rate, at 60 degrees. 

 The slaty beds which formed the nucleus of the curve have 

 been denuded for some distance up the axis of the synclinal, 

 thus leaving a U-shaped valley of quartzites, along the bot- 

 tom of which the stream above the fall flows. At the fall, the 

 quartzites themselves, for 30 or 40 feet in depth all round 

 the curve, have been carried a way,, leaving a tolerably vertical 

 face, down which the water runs to the great basin of the 

 pool below. Thus, in looking over the pool at the fall, 

 one sees in front 30 feet or so of quartzite beds curving up 



