The Development of Soil Profiles in Southeastern Australia

Australia ie an old continent. AS a land mass it has been severely eroded; much of it peneplaned. At times it has been submerged beneath the sea. and loaded with sediment, then elevated by stages to develop characteristic benches, plateaus and plains. The continent now consists of a great plain, almost r.s large as the United States, with a border of mountains along the east coast, some low, isolated ranges of small area in the interior and a range of low hills along the west and northwest coast. The mountains along the east coast consist of a broad range of hills with an elevation of from 1,000 to 2,000 feet in the north, to .2,000 to 4 .000 feet along the east coast, culminating to the southeast in the rougher mountains known as the Australian Alps, v.hich reach * maximum elevation of 7,328 feet in Mount Kosciusko on the boundary between Victoria and New South Wales.