Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 2.djvu/25

] from one side of the basin to the other, by which, the barrier, being ruptured at the place where the present escarpment is seen, the drainage of the valley was effected.

"In this movement an area of twelve hundred square miles seems to have been raised to the height of four thousand feet, and the valley to have been overflowed by streams of greenstone and basalt, issuing from five mouths—the present lakes of the so-called upper country of the Derwent."

A large collection of geological specimens was made by Mr. Cormick and transmitted to England; and in the Appendix I have placed his very interesting account of his geological excursions to the more remarkable parts of the colony. With reference to the beautiful fossil tree of Rose Garland, he gives some additional particulars of its locality, and of the curious vertical moulds of trees, of which Mr. Barker pointed out several to us. He says, "the tree is imbedded in vesicular lava in a vertical position, at the extremity of a ridge of the same kind of rock, seventy feet above the river, which is here only twelve feet broad, winding through a wooded ravine about one hundred yards across. The height of the tree above the ground is six feet; its circumference at the base seven feet three inches, and its diameter at the top is fifteen inches."

A short distance further down the ridge is another tree, also beautifully silicified; only the upper portion of it remains, vertically imbedded in a