Sir T. Mitchell States
That The Great Valley Of The Cox River With All Its Branches,
Contracts, Where It Unites With The Nepean, Into A Gorge
2200 Yards In Width, And About 1000 Feet In Depth.
Other
similar cases might have been added.
The first impression, on seeing the correspondence of the
horizontal strata on each side of these valleys and great
amphitheatrical depressions, is that they have been hollowed
out, like other valleys, by the action of water; but when one
reflects on the enormous amount of stone, which on this
view must have been removed through mere gorges or
chasms, one is led to ask whether these spaces may not have
subsided. But considering the form of the irregularly
branching valleys, and of the narrow promontories projecting
into them from the platforms, we are compelled to abandon
this notion. To attribute these hollows to the present alluvial
action would be preposterous; nor does the drainage
from the summit-level always fall, as I remarked near the
Weatherboard, into the head of these valleys, but into one
side of their bay-like recesses. 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.
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