GEOLOGY. cv 



rock was never found in its position: whether owing to its real absence, or to the 

 difficulty of seeing shores so often, and for such long periods, covered with ice and 

 snow, or to my own negligence of this subject, where there was so much of more im- 

 portance to engage my attention, I cannot now presume to say. Several fragments of a 

 sandstone were however picked up on the shores, at various and distant places ; as, for 

 example, near Batty Bay, at Fury Beach, at Victoria Harbour and at other places 

 which I need not name, proving the existence of sandstone strata in the vicinity, or at 

 least somewhere on this coast. 



But according to more practised judgments than my own, these specimens are inade- 

 quate to prove whether the rock whence they have been derived belongs to the lowest 

 red sandstone, or to that which is termed red marl. That they are red, brown, and 

 mottled, sometimes soft, and at others very hard, is all that I can say respecting them ; 

 and this diversity of character is, as I am informed, well known to occur in both the 

 sandstones in question. 



But there is one fact whence I am told I may conclude, that in some parts of this 

 shore, at least, the collected specimens must have been derived from the red marl, what- 

 ever may be the case with respect to the southern part of the same line. This is the 

 occurrence of gypsum in the vicinity of Northeast Cape : a mineral which geologists 

 have liitherto referred to this series. But I must leave that matter to their judgments, 

 as I have nothing more to suggest on the subject of these rocks, since I am not pos- 

 sessed of any other evidence tlian that which I have stated. It is only needful to add, 

 that as I saw no strata superior to the limestone, and obtained no specimens likely to 

 have been derived from any series higher than the red marl, as the several friends 

 whom I have consulted admit ; so I may, I presume, conclude that the secondary strata 

 of this shore are limited to the rocks which I have described : a fact which, if I have 

 read sufficiently on this subject, is exactly conformable to what occurs very widely in 

 the northern portion of the North American continent. 



Having already said of the primary land of this coast, that it forms ridges of hills 

 more interior than those of limestone wherever these occur, I must now observe that it 

 reaches the shore at Port Logan, and occupies the remainder of that coast to the south- 

 ward, together with the valley of lakes that crosses the isthnms, as far as Lake Witter- 

 sted, where it is once more skirted by the flat limestone already described. Of the 

 geography of this class of rocks, I can, of course, give no farther description, since the 

 climate and the snow united, prevented all research into the interior, and all minute 

 examination, for the most part, of what was accessible. 



To say that what I saw and could not touch, consisted of gi-anite, is more than, as 1 

 am told, I ought to affirm, since geologists seem agreed that it is difficult to judge of 



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