PHYSIOGRAPHY OF EASTERN NEW GUINEA, ETC. S7 
area of New Britain. Most of the places referred to have 
been visited by the writer. For other information I am 
indebted to articles written by various officers of the 
garrison in the *‘Rabaul Record’’ (a publication issued 
monthly by the garrison at Rabaul for rather more than 
two years), and the excellent maps prepared by the Chief 
Surveyor, Rabaul, based on the Admiralty maps, corrected 
and brought up to date, from the latest information. I 
wish to thank Professor Richards, of the Queensland 
University, and his staff for much kindly help in the 
preparation of this paper. Other acknowledgments and 
references are made in the course of the paper. 
Il—_ GENERAL PHYSIOGRAPHY. 
The physiography of the area will be discussed in 
detail in later sections. It will only be necessary at the 
outset to draw attention to the more distinctive features. 
The general physiography of the area may be clearly seen 
in the sketch-map, text-fig. 1. The first thing that attracts 
notice is the parallelism in the trend-lines of Eastern New 
Guinea and New Ireland and the Solomons, and the 
apparent cross trend-line of the great peninsula and New 
Britain. In the arrangement of the mountain ranges of 
New Guinea something similar is seen. In the western 
part of the island the trend-line is west to east, the ranges 
extending nearly to the north-east coast. This trend seems 
to be continued in a parallel line in the great peninsula and 
New Britain. In the eastern part of New Guinea the 
trend-line is south-east. Parallet to the north-east coast- 
line is a series of volcanic islands, some active, rising 
directly out of the ocean upwards of 5,000 ft. They seem 
to be the peaks of a considerable range of mountains 
running parallel to the coast ranges and now submerged. 
This coast-line is generally bold throughout its length, and 
is flanked by series of coast ranges of varying altitudes up 
to 6,000 ft. The great peninsula is really a huge mountain 
massif built up of parallel ranges rising to a height of over 
12,000 ft. in the Finisterre Range. The trend of these 
ranges 1s, as previously noted, west to east, crossing the 
trend of the coast-lne and coast ranges. The general 
average height of the ranges of the peninsula seems to be 
from 5,000 to 8,000 ft. In New Britain, the average height, 
as far as is known, seems to be about 3,000 ft. with a few 
