General Sketch of the Coast. 21 



studded with very numerous islands. The specimens from this 

 tract consist almost entirely of sand-stone, resembling that of 

 Cambridge Gulf, Goulburn Island, and the Gulf of Carpen- 

 taria ; with which the trap-formation appears to be associated. 



York Sound, one of the principal inlets on this part of the 

 coast, is bounded by precipitous rocks, from one to two hun- 

 dred feet in height ; and some conical rocky peaks, which not 

 improbably consist of quartz-rock, were noticed on the eastern 

 side of the entrance. An unpublished sketch, by Captain 

 King, shows that the banks of Hunter's River, one of the 

 branches of York Sound, at seven or eight miles from its 

 opening, are composed of sand-stone, in beds of great regula- 

 rity ; and this place is also remarkable for a copious spring of 

 freshwater, one of the rarest phenomena of these thirsty and 

 inhospitable shores*. 



The most considerable inlet, however, which has yet been 

 discovered in this quarter of Australia, is Prince- Regent's 

 River, about thirty miles to the south-west of York Sound, — 

 the course of which is almost rectilinear for about fifty miles 

 in a south-eastern direction ; a fact which will probably be 

 found to be connected with the geological structure of the 

 country. The general character of the banks, which are lofty 

 and abrupt, is precisely the same with that of the rivers falling 

 into York Sound ; and the level of the country does not ap- 

 pear to be higher in the interior than near the coast. The 

 banks are from two to four hundred feet in height, and con- 

 sist of close-grained siliceous sand-stone, of a reddish hue f ; 

 and the view, (Plate, vol. ii. p. 46,) shows that the beds are 

 nearly horizontal, and very regularly disposed ; the cascade 

 there represented being about one hundred and sixty feet in 

 height, and the beds from six to twelve feet in thickness. Two 

 conspicuous hills, which Captain King has named Mounts 

 Trafalgar and Waterloo, on the north-east of Prince- Regent's 

 River, not far from its entrance, are remarkable for cap-like 

 summits, much resembling those which characterize the trap- 

 formation. (See fig. 5.) 



The coast on the^south of this remarkable river, to Cape 

 Leveque, has not yet been thoroughly examined ; but it ap- 

 pears from Captain King's Chart (No. V.) to be intersected by 

 several inlets of considerable size, to trace which to their ter- 

 mination is still a point of great interest in the physical geo- 

 graphy of New Holland. The space thus left to be explored 

 from the Champagny Isles to Cape Leveque, corresponds to 

 more than one hundred miles in a direct line ; within which 

 extent nothing but islands and detached portions of land have 



* Narrative, i. p. 405. f Narrative, i. pp. 434-437, and ii. p. 45. 



yet 



