Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/101

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myall (Aearia jwjuhda) formed a pleasant feature on the skirts of Liverpool Plains and elsewhere, drooping with delicate foliapje. Nearly all the trees are evergi'een, bat the general hue is somhre. The currejong (coonimitt) of the forest, and the casuarhia wliieh lines the rivers, stand with brighter green in cheering contrast to the dulness of surrounding leaves. Amongst the moimtain forests and dense underwood all tints may be found, but they are reserved for him wdio woos them, being far from the thoronglifares of travel. The steep eastern Hanks of the cordiUera are for the most part thickly woo<led, and dense jmigles fill the ravuies m the mountains and follow the streams downwards. On the less precipitous slopes to the interior an open forest is soon reached, and park-like glades, downs, and plains abound, until the great depression of the island is reached at an elevation of from six to eight hundred feet above the sea level The larger streams are accom- panied by lines of vegetation *weleome to thirsty travellers. Much of the interior is nut bare, but covered with a low growth of what the colonists call scrub — intermingled shrubs and smaU trees. Some early writers, following Strzelecki's surmise, assunied that the cordillera, interrupted by Bass's Straits, reappeared in Tasmania. Mr. A. Pu €• Selwyn, when geologist of Victoria, showed that tliis surmise was incorrect, and that the true extension of the cordillera is its deflection westward which divides the Murray river waters from the declivity to the sea. In Victoria the rocks which compose the chain are in great part of the upper and lower Hilurian age, and in these have been found the gold deposits. The lower Silurian rock system Mr. Selwyn estimated at a thickness of 85,000 feet. He it was who pointed out the fallacy of the generally-received opinion that gold would not be found at considerable depth, and in deference to his judgment Sir EoderickMurchiscn qualified in a later edition of his *Siluria' a statement which was at variance with Mr, Selw'yn*s opinion. An area of more than HO, 000 square miles presented prospective advantages to the gold -miner in Victoria alone* As the lower part of the Murray is approached, on leaving the hill country, the great tertiary depression of the interior is reachedj which extviiid^ .^ i^