Jenolan Caves. 
249 
whole country is scored and cut into by running 
water, the rugged hills and precipitous valleys giving 
rise to some really notable scenery ; but in its every 
aspect the carving of the hills, and in fact the scenery 
itself, depends upon the geological formations. While 
one gazes into these ravines and chasms, showing 
Nature in her wildest moods, it detracts nothing 
from the beauties and impressiveness of the land- 
scape to look below the surface, and understand the 
causes that have given birth to those mountains that 
rise and fall like billows away into the distance. 
A little thought, and we are back to the far-off time 
when the grey limestones around were masses of 
living coral. It is no small triumph for the science of 
our day to help us to look again into the early days of 
the earth, and to observe in those ancient sun- 
lit seas the stone-lilies, corals and shells treasuring 
within them the sole and only forms of life the world 
knew of. But the fact of life being there, even 
in its lowliest forms, adds an interest that will 
ever make these silent rock teachings appeal to the 
human mind 
Writing on these limestones, the late Mr. Charles 
Wilkinson, Government Geologist, remarks : — 
u And here it is perhaps not out of place to trace some 
steps in the course of Time that are forcibly presented to 
us, W hat a circle in the laws of nature is suggested by 
this scene ! First, the decaying vegetation of some ancient 
forest is invisibly distilling the gas known as carbonic 
acid ; then a storm of rain falls, clearing the air of the 
