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.
This place offers an example of one of the large farming, or rather
sheep-grazing establishments of the colony. Cattle and horses are,
however, in this case rather more numerous than usual, owing to some of
the valleys being swampy and producing a coarser pasture. Two or three
flat pieces of ground near the house were cleared and cultivated with
corn, which the harvest-men were now reaping: but no more wheat is sown
than sufficient for the annual support of the labourers employed on the
establishment. The usual number of assigned convict-servants here is
about forty, but at the present time there were rather more. Although
413