PART II. A GEOLOGICAL 

 RECONNAISSANCE 



CHAPTER V 

 THE COAST-LINE 



HAVING heard rumours of the probable mineral wealth 

 of a country which we will call Geologica, of which little 

 is known geologically, we may imagine that we decided 

 to make an expedition into its interior. This, of course, 

 involved considerable expense, but we hoped to be able 

 to recompense ourselves by the discovery of minerals of 

 economic value. We have endeavoured to find out the 

 structure and history of the land, relying as far as possible 

 on our own observations, but not rejecting the conclu- 

 sions of others whose work appeared, on comparison with 

 our own observations, to be satisfactory. 



There is a good topographical map of the coast region 

 published, and we provided ourselves with several copies 

 of this. It indicates amongst other things the mountains 

 and rivers, giving the heights of the principal summits 

 and showing the general configuration of the country by 

 means of contour lines, i.e. lines drawn at equal vertical 

 intervals through all points of the same elevation. The 

 contour lines are drawn at intervals of 250 feet, but 

 there are also two others on the lower parts of the 



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