Page:A sketch of the physical structure of Australia.djvu/21

 line changes its direction from N.N.E. to N.N.W., which latter bearing it maintains to its termination at Cape York in S. lat. 10° 43'. Through this northern portion of its course the constitution of the chain is only known from observations made upon the coast, and those of Dr. Leichhardt in his overland journey from Moreton Bay to Port Essington. Numerous ranges of considerable magnitude, having a north and south course, strike out upon the coast with many bays and indentations behind their headlands. There are, also, lofty islands stretching off the coast to a distance sometimes of thirty or forty miles. In the interior, Leichhardt makes mention of many mountain masses, whose waters, between the parallels of 25° and 18°, all seem to flow down to the eastern coast. Mount Pluto, described by Sir T. Mitchell in his last expedition, in lat. 25°, and long. 147° 30', or nearly 200 miles from the coast, seems to be the most distant source of some of these waters, as the M'Kenzie River of Leichhardt, and the River Beylando of Mitchell, or Cape of Leichhardt; and from it also proceeds Mitchell's Victoria River, running into the interior. North of these, however, the water-shed seems again to approach the coast line, as the head waters of the Burdekin and Separation creek, about 18° and 19°, are not at a greater distance from the sea than 100 miles, and the river Lynd which Leichhardt struck on near lat. 18° flows to the N.W. into the Gulf of Carpentaria. In this neighbourhood also,