THE INTERIOR OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA. 341 



by any other person, it will be by mere accident. It was gratifying to 

 find that the estuary itself, and the lower reaches of the river, afforded 

 good and open navigation for boats, in a space of five or six miles to 

 the bar^ which was distant only twenty-four miles from sheltered an- 

 chorage, in the southern part of Doubtful Island Bay, where, on the 

 formation of a depot, steamers might be convenient to the shore, and 

 coal in security. Notwithstanding also the roughness of the seven or 

 eight miles which intervened between the coal actually discovered, and 

 the head of navigation on its river, there is reason to believe a very 

 good and tolerably level road may, without much diflBculty, be earned 

 between them, and probably between the coal-bed and its nearest bay 

 of the sea-coast to the S.E., distant about the same number of miles ; 

 but of the latter I have no means of speaking with any degree of cer- 

 tainty. 



With these facilities, aided by the projection of a strong pile jetty 

 into the bay at the estuary's mouth, the inexhaustible bed of coal we 

 discovered on the 27th of December may at this particular juncture be 

 considered a most valuable acquisition to the colonial resources, and, if 

 worked and rendered available for the use of steamers, will have pre- 

 sented itself very opportunely on one of the intended lines of steam 

 route. 



These important considerations connected with the river on which 

 we were encamped, joined with the large quantity of good country we 

 had seen on its upper branches, induced me to name both the river and 

 inlet after His Excellency Governor Fitzgerald ; the small river on which 

 we had halted on the 36th, and which forms a pretty little tributary to 

 the Fitzgerald, being called the " Elcves." Aldebaran on the meridian 

 gave the latitude of our camp 34^ 3' 26'' S. 



Being now in possession of the material facts that a broad seam of 

 coal, if not several parallel seams, traversed this part of the country in 

 an E.N.E. and W.S.W. direction, and that we had been very near to, 

 if not actually upon, one of them, amongst the red sandstone lakes 

 noticed on the 12th of November, 160 miles to the E.N.E., I became 

 very desirous of tracing these seams further in the opposite direction, 

 where they might possibly be detected cropping out on some of the 

 various stream-beds and inlets which fell into the south coast. I ac- 

 cordingly broke up the camp on the morning of the 30th, and proceeded 

 from this interesting locality towards West Mount Barren, regretting 



