Some Of The Inhabitants
Remarked To Me That They Never Viewed One Of Those Bay-Like
Recesses, With The Headlands Receding On Both Hands, Without
Being Struck With Their Resemblance To A Bold Sea-Coast.
This
is certainly the case; moreover, on the present coast of New
South Wales, the numerous, fine, widely-branching
Harbours,
which are generally connected with the sea by a narrow
mouth worn through the sandstone coast-cliffs, varying from
one mile in width to a quarter of a mile, present a likeness,
though on a miniature scale, to the great valleys of the
interior. But then immediately occurs the startling difficulty,
why has the sea worn out these 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 forming 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.
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