1839.] MOUNTAIN RANGES. 221 



In regard to the interior but little was known for many years 

 after the establishment of colonies on the island, and there 

 is probably much yet to be learned. A most remarkable fea- 

 ture in the coast outline, observed by all the navigators who 

 examined it, was the absence of any outlets for large rivers ; 

 and the want of the facilities which they would have afforded, 

 long retarded, and has always obstructed, inland discovery. 

 In spite, however, of the numerous obstacles to the explo- 

 ration of the interior — sustained by a patience that was in- 

 exhaustible, and animated by a spirit of perseverance that 

 no danger or difficulty could intimidate — different parties 

 have penetrated into the country from different points, and 

 examined, for the most part satisfactorily, nearly one-fifth part 

 of the whole continent. 



Near the southern coast, in the neighborhood of Portland 

 Bay, commences a dark and rugged mass of mountain land, 

 called the Australian Grampians, which runs due north as 

 far as latitude 36° 12 ' S., where a range of grassy hills, di- 

 verging to the north-east, connects it with the Warragongs, 

 or Australian Alps, whose lofty peaks, rising to the height of 

 fifteen thousand feet above the level of the sea, are covered 

 with eternal snow. The Warragongs are the highest moun- 

 tains in Australia, — the loftiest peak of the Grampians, 

 Mount William, being but four thousand five hundred feet 

 high, and that of the Liverpool range, from six to seven 

 thousand feet : they run in a north-easterly direction, from 

 the southern termination of the continent, near Cape Wilson, 

 as low as 35° 20' S. In latitude 36° S., a chain called the 

 Blue Mountains, which, in the early history of the colony, 

 was long deemed impassable, branches off from the Warra- 

 gongs, and following generally the direction of the eastern 

 coast, forms the watershed between the eastern and western 

 streams, and is finally lost in the more elevated Liverpool 

 range, on the thirty-second parallel of southern latitude. 

 Mount York, the highest peak of the Blue Mountains, is a 

 little less than thirty-three hundred feet high. The Liver- 

 pool range at first runs due east, for sixty or seventy miles ; 



