Schouten Island. 13 



looking blocks of greenstone, attesting, like the pebbles 

 and rounded fragments of fossil wood already mentioned, 

 the action of a long-continued denuding force ; a force 

 which, no doubt, materially contributed to determine the 

 present physical characters of surface and soil, &c. 



It may have been that this district, immediately pre- 

 ceding the last considerable rise of the land, (when it is 

 probable the numerous lagoons lying along the eastern 

 coast of Van Diemen's Land, of Cape Barren, and of 

 Flinders' Island were formed,) lay under water, and was 

 subjected to the operation of furious tides setting to and 

 from the ocean and Oyster Bay, — a period when the 

 high peaks of the Schouten main could only have formed . 

 the summits of a chain of small islands and craggy 

 islets. 



To the westward of the comparatively level country of 

 the Apsley, there is a range of hills along the base of 

 which coal crops out at several points. 



I regret that circumstances prevented me from visiting 

 the localities. In the direction of Wabbs' Boat Harbour 

 there is near the sea-coast a granitic strip of country ; and 

 a few miles to the northward of it carboniferous sand- 

 stone shows out in great force. There is contained in it 

 innumerable thin seams and irregular patches of a lus- 

 trous jet-black coal, with fossil trees in abundance, hav- 

 ing this peculiarity, that many of the stumps of trees 

 which are there to be seen imbedded are partly silicious 

 and partly anthracitic, with their roots spreading out on 

 every side in the beds of sandstone, which but slightly 

 decline from the horizontal. 



Learning that coal had been picked up in the mouth 

 of a creek emptying itself into one of several lagoons 

 inside the sand-hills which bound the long open beach 

 there, I carefully examined the rivulet, — tracing up its 

 windings for about two miles, — when I discovered a 



