cvi GEOLOGY. 



primary mountains by their physiognomy alone. Even when more near the eye, I will 

 not say how often I may not have mistaken gneiss for granite ; yet this latter rock 

 seemed to me to predominate through all the ridges, as it was also that which I found 

 far most frequently whenever I could obtain actual contact with the rocks. 



That it presented the usual variety of external character, I need scarcely say, and 

 that it included a great variety of mineral aspect or composition is what I can now but 

 remember, without being able to describe. Only three varieties appear among the very 

 few specimens which I brought home ; namely, one of red felspar, white quartz, and 

 hornblende, one of the same felspar and quartz, with white mica, and a third of pale 

 felspar and quartz, with a dark variety of this mineral. In one place I noted that a 

 large mass of this rock was thickly studded with garnets ; but having brought home no 

 specimens, I cannot now describe it more particularly. 



Having found no specimens of gneiss in this small rescued collection, and having but 

 little recollection of the places where I saw this rock, I can give no account of it. 

 Commander Ross appears to have met with it more extensively than I did, but as this 

 branch of natural history was not under his charge, I cannot derive from his recollec- 

 tion, any facts sufficiently positive to state, either respecting its geography or its mineral 

 characters. I shall only note, that in Felix Harbour, I found hornblende schist, belong- 

 ing to this series, as I am informed, together with that compact green felspar, which is 

 known to be one of its inmates. That I saw common slate, or argillaceous schistus, in 

 Victoria Harbour, and in one or two other places, is all that I can now recollect respect- 

 ing that rock ; while one of the engraved plates represents a part of a stratum asso- 

 ciated with another of gneiss, traversed, as it appears, by a granite vein, and the 

 whole intersected by one of quartz. 



The last rock which I have to notice is trap. A considerable mass of this occurs at 

 Saumarez River, and it is also represented in one of the plates ; the only other place 

 where I noticed it was near Elizabeth Harbour, where numerous veins traverse the gra- 

 nitic hills which skirt this shore. 



Of mere minerals, I found agate pebbles in one place, with veins of white, pink, and 

 yellow quartz, near Elizabeth Harbour, and copper ore near Agnew River and Lord 

 Lindsay River. 



The hills are often covered with granite boulders, offering the usual difficulty so often 

 discussed : but I saw no other alluvia than those which are easily referred to the flow- 

 ing of water during the summer thaws, and to the action of the waves on the shores. 



