The ascent was steep and difficult, nor did the view from its summit
reward our toil. If there was anything interesting about it, it was the
remarkable geological formation of the ranges. The reader will understand
their character and structure from the accompanying cut, better than from
any description I can give. They were, in fact, wholly different in
formation from hills in general. To the westward there was a low,
depressed tract, with an unbroken horizon and a gloomy scrub. Southwards
the country was exceedingly broken, hilly, and confused; but there was a
line of hills bounding this rugged region to the eastward, and
immediately beyond that range were the plains I had crossed in going to
Mount Lyell. From the point on which we stood there were numerous other
projecting points, similar to those of the headlands in the channel,
falling outwards at an angle of 55 degrees, as if they had crumbled down
from perpendicular precipices. The faces of these points were of a dirty
white, without any vegetation growing on them; they fell back in
semicircular sweeps, and the ground behind sloped abruptly down to the
plains. The ranges were all flat-topped and devoid of timber, but the
vegetation resembled that of the country at their base, and the fragments
of rock scattered over them were similar: that is to say, milky quartz,
wood opal, granite, and other rocks (none of which occurred in the
stratification of these ranges), were to be found on their summits as on
the plains, and in equal proportion, as if the whole country had once
been perfectly level, and that the hills had been forced up.
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