3-021-146 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Forest scene on the Illawarra Mountains, New South Wales, [Australia], 1868. 'Not more than forty miles from Sydney, on the coast to the southward, is a region of picturesque beauty and luxuriant tropical vegetation quite different from that of the surrounding districts. This region consists of a belt of mountains sloping down to the Pacific Ocean, at the foot of which are valleys of rich soil, well-watered, and wondrously fertile. The ravines of these mountains are clothed with the most dense and lofty forests, in which the grotesque cabbage-palm and the graceful tree-fern abound, and the flame-tree may be distinguished from a distance, with its broad masses of scarlet blossoms reddening the forest in spring. Here too, in these shady recesses, a glimpse of the elegant lyre-bird (Menura superba) may be sometimes obtained, seated on an old stump, mocking with wonderful dexterity the various cries of the other winged denizens of these primeval forests'. From "Illustrated London News", 1868.