338 AUSTRALASIA. 



east coast, and discovered, at the south-east end, Kunie, to which he gave the 

 name of the Isle of Pines. Sixteen years later d'Entrecasteaux coasted the west 

 side and surveyed the reef lying over 100 miles farther north. 



The Loyalty Islands still remained unknown, and Butler, who discovered them 

 in 1800 or 1803, did little more than announce their existence. The systematic 

 exploration both of this group and of New Caledonia itself was reserved for 

 Dumont d'Urville in 1827. But much remained still to be done before the coast- 

 lines, with their fringing reefs, could be accurately laid down, and New Caledonia 

 had already been declared a French possession before the discovery, in 1854, of the 

 fine roadstead of Noumea, which has become the commercial centre of the colony. 



Now, however, New Caledonia is one of the best-known lands in the oceanic 

 world. It evidently forms with the parallel Loyalty group a geographical whole, 

 although the surface rocks are of different geological formation. Disposed exactly 

 in the same direction, from north-west to south-east, they are, in fact, two mountain 

 ranges, one of which, the western, is completely upraised in a continuous mass, 

 while the highest summits of the other still lie below the surface as foundations 

 for the superstructure of insular coralline banks. Heefs and shoals, also resting 

 on submerged primitive or volcanic rocks, continue both ranges seawards, and 

 between the two flows a deep marine trough, where the sounding line has failed to 

 touch the bottom in 350 fathoms of water. Compared with the other oceanic lands, 

 the New Caledonian orographic system harmonises with the general disposition of 

 the upraised chains. It forms a folding in the earth's crust parallel with that 

 which caused the upheaval of the Solomon groujj. 



Excluding the reefs and contiguous islets the large island presents the form of 

 a very elongated regular oval, 250 miles long with a mean breadth of not more 

 than 30 miles. Nearl}^ the whole of the surface is covered with hills and moun- 

 tains of very irregular form and elevation. The south-eastern uplands form 

 isolated masses separated by intervening plains, partly marshy and studded with 

 small lakes, whose overflow is discharged in various directions. These plains are 

 perfectly level, while the escarpments of the surrounding hills rise abruptly as if 

 from deep water. The soil is a hard and ferruginous clay, interspersed with 

 nodules of black and red iron, and for the most part completely arid. In some 

 places are seen scanty tufts of grass, and in a few more favoured spots appear 

 dense thickets rising like green oases in the midst of the barren steppe. 



Farther north and near the east coast, which, on the whole, is rather more 

 elevated than the opposite side, the Humboldt Peak attains an elevation of over 

 5,300 feet, and was long supposed to be the culminating point of the island. Some 

 12 miles to the west, and near a bay ramifying into several creeks, stands the rival 

 eminence of the Dent de Saint Vincent (4,750 feet). North of these heights the 

 whole breadth of the land is occupied by mountains, which, however, gradually 

 fall in the direction of the north-west, where few summits exceed 3,000 feet. But 

 towards the north-east extremity these uplands assume the aspect more of a coast- 

 range, and here attain their greatest altitude in the Panic Peak (5,385 feet), and 

 in another rounded crest nearly 5,600 feet high. 



