8 
stone, basalt and other igneous rocks. It is flanked on both sides 
by thick beds of palaeozoic formations, chiefly sandstone, but also 
containing limestone and coal. In the northern portion of the chain 
Dr. Leichardt found similar formations — and especially trap and 
granite near the Burdekin river. In the Port Philip district there 
are similar igneous rocks, and on the coast tertiary formations rest- 
ing on the edges of upturned palaeozoic beds. In West Australia, 
the Darling range consists of granite below, covered by metamorphic 
rocks ; and between it and the sea is a plain composed of tertiary 
beds. In the colony of North Australia there is a great sandstone 
plateau, rising about 1800 feet above the sea, and probably of pa- 
laeozoic age ; whilst on the immediate shore and round the Gulf of 
Carpentaria are beds supposed to belong to the tertiary period. 
Similar formations constitute the substratum of the central desert ; 
in which Captain Sturt was compelled to turn, when half-way to 
the Gulf of Carpentaria, from the southern coast. Hence these 
tertiary rocks are probably continuous through the whole centre of 
the island, and during the tertiary period all this portion of the 
country was submerged, whilst the high lands on the coast rose like 
four groups of islands from the shallow seN' —Athenoemn, Nov. 24, 
1847. 
Whichever of these opinions be the correct one, we certainly find 
the natural productions of all these portions of the country composed 
of precisely the same types, the generality of which differ entirely 
from those of the islands of the Indian Archipelago on the one hand, 
and of New Zealand and Polynesia on the other. 
With respect to the position of Australia, it will only be necessary 
to state that it is situated between the 10th and 45th degrees of 
south latitude, and the 112th and 154th degrees of longitude east 
from Greenwich ; its extent, in round numbers, may therefore be 
said to be 3000 miles in length, or from west to east, and inclusive 
of Van Diemen’s Land nearly the same in breadth, or from north to 
south. In its present uplifted position its form is nearly square, 
with a depressed centre bounded by an almost continuous range 
of hills and plateaux, which, varying in altitude from one to six 
thousand feet above the level of the sea, in some places approach the 
coast and present lofty and inaccessible cliffs to the ocean, while 
in others they trend towards the interior of the country at a distance 
of from twenty to eighty miles from the coast-line; but inasmuch as 
these elevations are all of an undulating and not of a precipitous 
character, no part of the country can be considered as strictly alpine. 
Nothing can be more different than the features of the country on 
the exterior and interior of this great barrier, particularly on the 
eastern coast, where, between the mountains and the sea, the vege- 
tation partakes to a great extent of a tropical character ; it is there, 
on the rich alluvial soil, formed by the debris washed down from the 
hills, that we find various species of Eucalypti , Fici , and other trees, 
many of which attain an immense altitude, and forests of towering 
palms ; the surface of the ground beneath clothed with a dense and 
impervious underwood, composed of dwarf trees, shrubs and tree- 
