Fingal and East Coast. 63 



In estiniatiti^ the cliaracter and value of an anchorage 

 where the shelter is not complete, it is of importance to 

 consider whether the exposed point be that of the pre- 

 valent winds : and certainly this is not the case at Long 

 Point ; for a heavy gale from the south east is scarcely 

 experienced on an average oftener than once in twelve 

 months. 



The beach inside Long Point is strewn with rounded 

 fragments of a fine bituminous coal ; warranting the 

 supposition that a seam of some magnitude has been 

 exposed, and more or less broken up, under the sea along 

 the line of coast in the direction of the Douglas River, 

 and at no great depth from the surface. 



From the Douglas River to Long Point a narrow 

 strip of low ground extends, between the sand -banks 

 which skirt the coast and the greenstone hills inland. 

 This is superficially composed of the newer sandstone, 

 sections of which may be seen, to the perpendicular depth 

 of upwards of 100 feet, in the creek which empties itself 

 on the northern side of Long Point. 



The course of the Douglas River itself, for six or 

 seven miles from its mouth, is through this newer over- 

 lying sandstone. Its dip, which is rarely more than 15° 

 from the horizon, inclines along the banks of the Douglas 

 to south west, south, and south south east, — generally 

 to south west. The average course of the Douglas for 

 the first few miles is from the west: it afterwards runs 

 from north west and north. In ascending the river 

 channel, therefore, the traveller necessarily proceeds 

 almost in the direction of the stratification. 



The Douglas is every where commanded by heights 

 of greenstone, the points and spurs of which run down 

 almost to the river's brink at many places. The channel 

 of the river is, indeed, not unfrequently much encum- 

 bered, and nearly choked up by immense blocks of erup- 



