June 22, 1857.] FITTON ON NORTH-WESTERN AUSTRALIA. 501 



nine months, which was at present, with other more detailed notes, on hoard 

 the Messenger. 



The President asked whether it was discovered that the Newcastle range 

 divided the waters that fell into the Gulf of Carpentaria from those that flowed 

 into the ocean ? 



Mr. Elsey replied that the Newcastle range did not divide them. It was a 

 peculiar feature of the range that the Gilbert river ran through it. 



The President said the Meeting would agree with him that the exploration 

 of Mr. Gregory and his associates had been one of the most remarkable ever 

 undertaken by the explorers of Austraha. The Society had already honoured 

 the chief of the expedition with their Gold Medal; and he was sure, from 

 what had fallen from Mr. Elsey, that a whole evening might still be profitably 

 devoted to the consideration of the subject. 



The third Paper read was — 

 3. On the Structure of North- Western Australia. ByWM. H. Fitton, Esq., 



M.D., F.R.G.S., &c. 

 Addressed to Sir Eoderick I. Murchison. 

 Having undertaken so long ago as in 1825 to examine and describe 

 some specimens brought from the coast of Australia by Captain 

 Philip Parker King, R.n., I ascertained the disposition of the strata 

 on the part of the north-western coast which that officer has de- 

 scribed ; and finding in Captain Flinders, an account of the chains 

 of islands, where he closed one division of his survey, I was led to 

 connect his observations at the N.W. of the Gulf of Carpentaria with 

 what I had learned from Captain King— the distance between the 

 two stations and the extreme points of this region being not less 

 than 18° of longitude, — about 1250 English miles. 



The following is an extract from Captain Flinders's description of 

 a part of the N.W. coast :* — 



" A third chain of islands commences here, which, like Bromby's and the 

 English Company's Islands, extends out north-eastward from the coast. I 

 have frequently observed a great similarity, both in the ground plans and 

 elevations of hills and of islands, in the vicinity of each other ; but do not re- 

 collect another instance of such a likeness in the arrangements of clusters of 

 islands. This third chain is doubtless what is marked in the Dutch chart as 

 one long island, and in some charts is called ' Wessel's Eylandt,' which name 

 I retain, with a slight modification, calling them WesseVs Islands. They had 

 been seen from the N. end of Cotton's Island to reach as far as thirty miles out 

 from the main coast ; but this is not more than half their extent, if the Dutch 

 chart be at all correct." 



These observations from a geographer of such talents and experi- 

 ence as Captain Flinders, coinciding with what I had learned from 

 the maps and specimens of Captain King, led me to the speculations 



* Flinders's ' Voyage to Terra Australis (vol. ii. p. 24), prosecuted in the years 

 1801 to 1803 '—with an Atlas. London. Two vols. 4to. Not published till 1814. 



