space for the windings of streams which originate in its 
eastern flanks, ere they are discharged into the ocean. On 
other coasts, as upon one part of the north — upon the western 
(as inland from the Swan River) — and on parts of the southern 
shores of that continent, have been observed, ridges of hills ; 
but these are isolated, or rising from the surface of a compa- 
ratively level country, present no trace of connexion, either 
with the great eastern chain, or with each other : and they 
are all of inferior elevation, no one exceeding 3000 feet of 
perpendicular height above the level of the sea, and most of 
them of not half that elevation. It may be here remarked, 
moreover, that with reference to the face of the interior, every 
observation of the traveller goes to support the theory, that 
although detached hills and even some ridges have been 
noticed on its ample surface, neither a chain of mountains, 
nor any elevated points to form the nucleus of a second main- 
range exist in the central regions of the continent, which will 
one day be rather found a vast level, through which its 
rivers, if they exist far from its eastern side, have, from the 
prevalent disposition of the country generally to drought, 
much to combat in their efforts to gain any sea coast. 
From these brief remarks of the structure of the Austra- 
lian continent, it will be seen that the eastern coast, or that 
of New South Wales, within and beyond the tropic, is the 
only shore to which we can look for Epiphytic Orchidacem and 
for Filices and other of the Cryptogamic class — in fact, the 
only one (if we except one or two points of the north coast, 
strictly so called) on which these orders of the vegetation of 
that great country have hitherto been found — its main chain, 
which in some parallels has been found to measure 6000 feet 
above the sea shore, furnishing in its ravines and rocky 
flanks, ample shade and humidity to the sustenance of those 
families ; but in several islands in the Gulf of Carpentaria, 
says Mr. Brown, “ having a flora of phcenogamous plants ex- 
ceeding 200 species, I did not observe a single species of 
moss” — and this, evidently, because of the ordinary elevation 
of those isolated spots ; the consequent little shade they 
afford ; and the extreme dryness of the circumambient atmo- 
sphere. 
With the requisite conditions of high temperature and con- 
