424 PACIFIC OCEAN. 
instances of nonconformity, especially after it has been shown that 
irregularities or variations from uniform directions are an essential 
feature in the physiognomy of the world. 
Both systems are very distinctly illustrated in Australia, and the 
facts there, were long since stated by Fitton.* All the great lines, 
both of mountains and bays, have either a course between northeast and 
north-northeast, or northwest and west-northwest. The mountains 
of the southeast coast; the east and west shores of the Gulf of Car- 
pentaria, and the islands off its west cape; Cambridge Gulf and the 
coast a few degrees east; the northwest coast ; and the bays in South 
Australia, have the former trend: while the south shore of Gulf Car- 
pentaria, and the east coast of Australia in nearly the same line; the 
coast by Cambridge Gulf; the coast of South Australia; the Bay of 
Sydney or Port Jackson, and others, have the latter trend. 
The subject might receive farther illustration by reference to the 
courses of cleavage joints, as brought out by Necker} and also illus- 
trated by Darwin.{ But it would add nothing confirmatory, since it 
is now an admitted fact that there is a general correspondence be- 
tween the direction of these joints, and the mountain ranges or axes 
of elevation. ‘The rectangularity of intersection between two systems 
of fissures in a region, is another branch of this subject, well illustrated 
by De la Beche,§ Phillips,|| Hopkins,f and other geologists, showing 
that the system which has influenced these smaller operations is the 
same that controlled the courses of the islands and mountain ranges 
of the globe. 
The reader will not fail to observe that the facts, as well as princi- 
ples deduced, accord in no respect with the hypothesis of M. Elie de 
Beaumont that the direction of a mountain chain is an index of its age. 
VI. ORIGIN OF THE GENERAL FEATURES OF THE PACIFIC. 
In the foregoing survey of the lands of the Pacific Ocean, we have 
considered the nature and origin of their features, internal and ex- 
* Sketch of the Geology of Australia, Phil. Mag. lxviii. 135. 
Tt Bibliothéque Universelle de Genéve, xlili. 166, 1830. 
+ Darwin on South America. 8vo. London, 1846, page 163. 
§ Geol. Rep. on Cornwall, Devon and West Somerset. 8vo. London, 1839. 
|| Geology of Yorkshire. 
1 Trans. Camb. Phil. Soc. vii. 
