468 
NEW SOUTH WALES 
CHAP. 
great though circumscribed depressions on a wide platform, 
and left mere gorges at the openings, through which the whole 
vast amount of triturated matter must have been carried away? 
The only light I can throw upon this enigma, is by remarking 
that banks of the most irregular forms appear to be now form¬ 
ing in some seas, as in parts of the West Indies and in the 
Red Sea, and that their sides are exceedingly steep. Such 
banks, I have been led to suppose, have been formed by 
sediment heaped by strong currents on an irregular bottom. 
That in some cases the sea, instead of spreading out sediment 
in a uniform sheet, heaps it round submarine rocks and islands, 
it is hardly possible to doubt, after examining the charts of the 
West Indies ; and that the waves have power to form high and 
precipitous cliffs, even in land-locked harbours, I have noticed 
in many parts of South America. To apply these ideas to the 
sandstone platforms of New South Wales, I imagine that the 
strata were heaped by the action of strong currents, and of the 
undulations of an open sea, on an irregular bottom ; and that 
the valley-like spaces thus left unfilled had their steeply sloping 
flanks worn into cliffs during a slow elevation of the land ; the 
worn-down sandstone being removed, either at the time when 
the narrow gorges were cut by the retreating sea, or subsequently 
by alluvial action. 
Soon after leaving the Blackheath, we descended from the 
sandstone platform by the pass of Mount Victoria. To effect 
this pass, an enormous quantity of stone has been cut through ; 
the design, and its manner of execution, being worthy of any 
line of road in England. We now entered upon a country less 
elevated by nearly a thousand feet, and consisting of granite. 
With the change of rock, the vegetation improved ; the trees 
were both finer and stood farther apart ; and the pasture 
between them was a little greener and more plentiful. At 
Hassan’s Walls I left the high-road, and made a short detour 
to a farm called Walerawang ; to the superintendent of which 
I had a letter of introduction from the owner in Sydney. Mr. 
Browne had the kindness to ask me to stay the ensuing day, 
which I had much pleasure in doing. This place offers an 
example of one of the large farming, or rather sheep-grazing, 
establishments of the colony. Cattle and horses are, however, 
