the sea, and, in like manner,
it was found that the depot of Mr. Oxley, on the Lachlan, was only 500,
there being a still greater fall of country beyond these two points.
The maximum height of the fossil bank was 300 feet; and if we suppose a
line to be drawn from its top to the eastward, that line would pass
over the marshes of the two rivers, and would cut them at a point below
which they both gradually diminish. Hence I am brought to conclude that
in former times the sea washed the western base of the dividing ranges,
at or near the two points whose respective elevations I have given; and
that when the mass of land now lying waste and unproductive, became
exposed, the rivers, which until then had pursued a regular course to
the ocean, having no channel beyond their original termination,
overflowed the almost level country into which they now fall; or,
filling some extensive concavity, have contributed, by successive
depositions, to the formation of those marshes of which so much has
been said. I regret extremely, that my defective vision prevents me
giving a slight sketch to elucidate whet I fear I have, in words,
perhaps, failed in making sufficiently intelligible.

GEOLOGICAL REMARKS.

Now, as we know not by what means the changes that have taken place on
the earth's surface have been effected, and can only reason on them
from analogy, it is to be feared we shall never arrive at any clear
demonstration of the truth of our surmises with regard to geographical
changes, whether extensive or local, since the causes which produced
them will necessarily have ceased to operate. We cannot refer to the
dates when they took place, as we may do in regard to the eruptions of
a volcano, or the appearance or disappearance of an island. Such events
are of minor importance. Those mighty changes to which I would be
understood to allude, can hardly be laid to the account of chemical
agency. We can easily comprehend how subterranean fires will
occasionally burst forth, and can thus satisfactorily account for
earthquake or volcano; but it is not to any clashing of properties, or
to any visible causes, that the changes of which I speak can be
attributed. They appear rather as the consequences of direct agency, of
an invisible power, not as the occasional and fretful workings of
nature herself. The marks of that awful catastrophe which so nearly
extinguished the human race, are every day becoming more and more
visible as geological re