Page:A sketch of the physical structure of Australia.djvu/48

36 of Endeavour Straits, west of the hilly range that ends in Cape York and Peaked Hill was an absolute flat; scarcely raised above the sea, composed apparently of loose or slightly coherent sand. All observers state that the whole eastern and southern coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria has the same or a similar character.

From this region, where we thus get a peep at the nature of the country on the western side of the eastern coast range, we must now pass at once to

II. AUSTRALIA FELIX OR THE PORT PHILLIP DISTRICT.

I will first of all give my own notes of what I saw in this district.

My stay there was limited to 12 days, and my explorations were confined to a few miles, round Melbourne on one side of Port Phillip and round Geelong on the other. The town of Melbourne stands upon sandstone, a good deal resembling the Sydney sandstone in lithological characters. The beds are frequently inclined at angles of 20&deg; or 30&deg; dipping in different directions. No fossils were seen in them. A few miles south of Melbourne, at a place called St. Kilda, is a hard white quartzose sandstone, thin and regularly bedded. It is exposed in the cliffs, and on the beach at low water, and at one place I walked for full a quarter of a mile over the edges of beds dipping regularly to the N.N.W. at an angle of 45&deg;, so that the thickness there must be at least from 900 to 1000 feet. No fossils were seen in these rocks either, but from mineral character, from their aggregate thickness, and from their highly inclined positions, I venture to consider them as belonging to the palæozoic formation. This supposition is supported by the fact of coal being found in the neighbouring district of Western Port, in rocks, as they were described to me, of pre-