6o 
The Australasian Scientific Magazine. [Sept, i, 1885. 
Yes, ’tis true ! This is indeed a change ! A transformation scene from 
those dense forest glens, where solemn grandeur often reigns supreme, to 
those bright charming slopes and flats in Nature’s park below. 
See how yon rolling rtfge in undulating graceful curves 
Sweeps upwards from that rich flat below, which serves 
The settler’s purpose. For here are soils which, tillel, and fertilized by rain, 
Yield most prolific crops of choicest fruits, and stores of grain. 
Sculptured in lovely forms by Nature’s soft unerring hand. 
The rains, the frosts, and snows have moulded this fair land. 
Flow strange it is those gentle contours form a figure 
Most like an ogre curve, with mathematic rigour. 
Or else a cone-shaped hillock stands alone, 
With rocky out-crops, like some ruined dome. 
And browsing o’er its grassy slopes ’tis true 
Are those marsupial forms, the weird-like kangaroo. 
From those Bursaria seeds to Banksia cones the parrot flies, 
While cockatoos and satin-birds their needs from farmers’ grain supplies. 
But, you ask, is it possible that the rain, the frosts, and snows, that mere 
atmospheric agencies have carved out the gentle hollows, have produced 
such polymorphic features in this lovely area. Are there not other causes 
for these striking contours, for this varied surface configuration ? Yes, my 
friend, there are other causes. The physiographist who would seek to 
obtain a clue to those mysterious forces which have dominated in the 
evolution of existing contours, must call to his aid the researches of the 
geologist as well as those of the chemist and meteorologist. From the 
latter he will learn that those conditions generated in the laboratory of the 
atmosphere, that invisible substance which surrounds us ; which though 
“softer than the softest down, more impalpable than the finest gossamer, 
that leaves the cobweb undisturbed, and scarcely stirs the lightest flower 
that feeds on the dew it supplies — yet when in motion is able to crush the 
the most refractory substances with its weight.” That those agencies and 
conditions re-act on the hardened crust of the earth ; that the chemical 
components of the one, by the interaction of still more subtle and recon- 
dite forces, affect most powerfully the chemical constituents of the other ; 
or, in other words, from the chemist we learn that in proportion as the rock 
masses contain certain chemical constituents, so will be the ratios of their 
denudation and erosion, as affected by atmospheric or aqueous agencies. 
And this difference of denudation and erosion will often account 
for the development of physical features, and of landscape effects. 
From the geologist we learn, as the results of his observations 
and reasonings, that other and perhaps the original or primary 
causes of these surface diversities are to be sought for in the opera- 
tion of deep seated volcanic or plutonic forces connected with the 
earth as a cooling globe, and that these subterranean throes have dominated 
in the past in producing greater inequalities in the surface. In short, in 
the words of a celebrated writer, “The main instruments of surface 
diversity into mountain and valley, table land, and plain, are the volcanic 
forces acting from within, and the forces of erosion and denudation as 
persistently acting from without. And so the upheaving of continents, the 
uppelling of mountain chains and mountains, are the work of innumerable 
volcanoes, earthquakes, and earth tremors operating through untold ages. 
And to these combined forces — assisted by the wasting and wearing of air 
and water, rain, rivers, and glaciers — are to be mainly ascribed the principal 
features in the vertical relief or superficial diversity of the land.” Do you 
