Sculpturing of the Mountains. 303 
wafted upwards and along for a considerable distance .” 1 
“ Some idea,” says Sir Thomas Mitchell, “ may be 
formed of the intricate character of the mountain 
ravines in the neighbourhood, from the difficulties 
experienced by the surveyors in endeavouring to 
obtain access to Mount Hay. Mr. Dixon, in an unsuc- 
cessful attempt, penetrated to the Valley of the 
Grose, until then unvisited by man, and when he at 
length emerged from the ravines in which he had 
been bewildered four days, he thanked God (to use his 
own words, in an official letter) that he had found his 
way out of them. Even Count Strzelecki tells us, 
that in the course of his researches he was engulphed 
in the endless labyrinth of the almost subterranean 
gullies of Mount Hay, and was unable to extricate 
himself and his men until after days of incessant 
fatigue, danger, and starvation.” 
From a geological standpoint, the following des- 
cription by Professor David is an excellent summary 
of the general features of the best known resorts on 
the Mountains : — 
“ The plateau of the Blue Mountains proper con- 
sists of a deeply-eroded platform of Hawkesbury 
Sandstone. At the top of the fold at Lapstone Hill 
the platform attains an altitude of about six hundred 
feet above the sea, and from here it rises westwards 
at the rate of about one hundred and sixty feet to the 
mile, its greatest elevation on the portion traversed 
1 Edwin Barton, quoted in Railway Guide. Ed. 1886, p. 57. The chasm 
described is not by any means the deepest known, and the trees in the valley below 
are as a rule less than one hundred feet in height, 
