COASTS OF AUSTRALIA. 
223 
parations were made for leaving the place which l 819 - 
has afforded us so good an opportunity of repair- Ju] y 10 - 
ing our defects. 
The basis of the country in the vicinity of this 
river, is evidently granitic ; and, from the abrupt 
and primitive appearance of the land about Cape 
Tribulation and to the north of Weary Bay, there 
is every reason to suppose that granite is also 
the principal feature of those mountains ; but the 
rocks that lie loosely scattered about the beaches 
and surface of the hills on the south side of the 
entrance are of quartzose substance; and this 
likewise is the character of the hills at the east 
end of the long northern beach, where the rocks 
are coated with a quartzose crust, that in its 
crumbled state forms a very unproductive soil 
The hills on the south side of the port recede 
from the banks of the river, and form an amphi- 
theatre of low grassy land, and some tolerable 
soil, upon the surface of which, in many parts, 
we found large blocks of granite heaped one upon 
another. Near the tent we found coal ; but the 
presence of this mineral in a primitive country, 
at an immense distance from any part where a coal 
formation is known to exist, would puzzle the geo- 
logist, were I not to explain all I know upon the 
subject. Upon referring to the late Sir Joseph 
Banks’s copy of the Endeavour’s log, (in the 
possession of my friend Mr. Brown,) I found the 
