AEQUINOCTIA, AN OLD PALEOZOIC CONTINENT 569 



eastern part of Victoria one meets again granite rocks and more or 

 less vertical formations of gneiss and strata of Silurian age (p. 252). 

 Continuing northward, we come to New South Wales, where north- 

 south zones of granite and strongly folded Silurian and locally 

 Devonian beds, together with old porphyry, form the eastern coast 

 up to the Bateman Bay (latitude 35°4o'S.). Northward this chain 

 departs from the coast and disappears gradually under the hori- 

 zontal Carboniferous (pp. 253-54). Further east another range 

 consisting of granite and Silurian strata extends toward the north 

 to Queensland (p. 254). In the northern part of New South Wales, 

 the New England Range is composed of folded strata of Lower 

 Paleozoic formations, with a nucleus of granite forming mountains 

 (p. 254). To the north the granite diminishes, but the folded 

 Devonian series increases (p. 255). To the west the Cordilleras 

 disappears under the mantle of "desert sandstone" stretching to 

 the Gulf of Carpentaria; at some points there rise through this 

 mantle formations of granite and Paleozoic sediments (p. 255). 

 Between latitude 2 2°3o' and 2 2°S. there are further patches of the 

 Devonian and Silurian; but to the north of latitude 2 2°S. the 

 coast, as far north as it is known, is formed of granite rocks, as 

 also are the islands of the Strait of Torres, between Cape York and 

 New Guinea (p. 256). In southeastern Australia the Silurian and 

 Devonian, although much folded, have remained recognizable by 

 their fossils up to latitude 2 2°S. 



If we now pass to the opposite (northwest) side of the archi- 

 pelago, to Southeastern Asia, what do we find? The islands of 

 Banka and Billiton form a connection between the Dutch East 

 Indies and the Malacca Peninsula. The granitic lands of these 

 stanniferous islands extend in a northwestern direction over the 

 southern point of the peninsula, in which (at Singapore) sandstones 

 and old schists^ have also been discovered. Just west of longitude 

 ioo°E. this granite chain turns to the north and ends in this direction 

 at the island Kaw Tau, in the Gulf of Siam (Suess, Vol. Ill, Part i, 

 p. 303). To the west follows a depression in which flows the 

 Bandon (p. 303). To the west of this depression comes another 



'Suess, Vol. I, p. 600 and Vol. Ill, Part i, p. 303. See also Verbeek, Rapport 

 sur les Moluques, pp. 755-56, concerning the presence of Jurassic rocks in this series. 



