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   The landscape design of Nature has been examined on undulating land, but the design and the shapes and the forms of the land are there in the 'flat' country. The shapes and forms may not always be identified by the naked eye, yet the marking in of contours on the land with the aid of a levelling instrument and many pegs, will clearly disclose them.

   Then there is the primordial landscape with its vistas of mountain crags and caps and panoramas of cliffs and chasms where the hard geological structures below appear to have thrust through the landscape. There may be only a thin soil here and there which supports a few patches of scrub or scattered trees among the rocks, Even in this harsh angular land there will be the water-divide lines of the main ridges and the drainage lines of the water courses, all twisted and bizarre. With the rocky foundations of the primary valleys and primary ridges, there will be the rough land forms of saddle, hill and pond.

   The wind has intervened in the battle of water and the land. The signs of its victories are the hill forms in valleys which have created many saddle forms and pond forms which may not hold water. Where the structures below are previous and on the strips of dunelands, Nature's drainage lines have been obliterated, But where water has made good its retreat to the sea to attack again in rain and has re-established the drainage lines, the wind and the water have fashioned landscapes of sparkling variety. There are occasional flood plains where deeply flowing water has fashioned landscapes like those of the dunelands--of many hill, saddle and pond forms.

   THERE ARE FRAGMENTS IN THE LANDSCAPE. They have great importance but are not always of the three shapes of the land. These fragments are land which is covered with water some of the time. Firstly, there are the areas between the tides. This is land at low tide and water at high tide. Secondly, there are the flood plains of streams and rivers. This is land for most of the time and becomes water once each year over many parts of the world. In Australia it is different: the weather patterns do not produce the regular annual floodings. On the other hand the flood plain of the Hawkesbury River, near Sydney in New South Wales, was covered by water six times in five weeks in 1951.

   This land-water or water-land should be kept inviolate from wrongful intrusions. Towns and buildings or stock care centres should not intrude. Towns were moved off this particular flood plain by Governor Macquarie in 1810. They are known today as the Macquarie towns--Richmond, Windsor, Wilberforce, Pitt-town and Castlereagh.

   These fragments are the thickening of the vital contact lines of water and the land. They are, as it were, adored and courted by each of the antagonists in the battle of water and land. It is always the front line, the fragment between, the piece in the middle--but it must not be a no-man's land. It should be cherished and kept for the landscape.

   Through all history man has battled man and illogically fought with Nature over these vital water lines. Now mankind at last should appreciate that the contact line of water and land has become his battle line of survival.

   Yet in all the special purpose landscapes of man, the movement of the water off the land has been speeded up instead of being controlled and slowed down. Water moves faster off the farms than it did from the former natural landscapes, while the farms carry more animals that provide waste products which are washed to the streams and pollute them. Rainfall run-off water rushes from the roofed and paved areas of the city and waste water is lost quickly without reuse.

   Polluted water should not be allowed to cross these vital lines to destroy the sanctity of the common waters of the land and to upset the great balancing medium of earthly life--the seas.

   In the design for the environment submitted in following chapters, the water which finally moves off the land surface flows first through the strip forests of the farm and grazing lands; and from the towns and cities, through the City Forests--where the water is cleansed and reconstituted.

   When the nations of the world agree--as they must do--to protect the vital line of land's contact with water the battle of pollution will be quickly won and there will soon emerge landscapes of unparallel efficiency and beauty.