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

 myall (Acacia pendula) formed a pleasant feature on the skirts of Liverpool Plains and elsewhere, drooping with delicate foliage. Nearly all the trees are evergreen, but the general hue is sombre. The currejong (cooramin) of the forest, and the casuarina which lines the rivers, stand with brighter green in cheering contrast to the dulness of surrounding leaves. Amongst the mountain forests and dense underwood all tints may be found, but they are reserved for him who woos them, being far from the thoroughfares of travel. The steep eastern flanks of the cordillera are for the most part thickly wooded, and dense jungles fill the ravines in 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 accompanied by lines of vegetation welcome to thirsty travellers. Much of the interior is not bare, but covered with a low growth of what the colonists call scrub-intermingled shrubs and small trees.

Some early writers, following Strzelecki's surmise, assumed that the cordillera, interrupted by Bass's Straits, reappeared in Tasmania. Mr. A. R. C. Selwyn, when geologist of Victoria, showed that this 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 Silurian age, and in these have been found the gold deposits.

The lower Silurian rock system Mr. Selwyn estimated at a thickness of 35,000 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 Roderick Murchison qualified in a later edition of his 'Siluria' a statement which was at variance with Mr. Selwyn's opinion. An area of more than 30,000 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 reached, which extends to its