Page:A sketch of the physical structure of Australia.djvu/89

77 on the flat country around the Alligator Rivera, to which he found some difficulty in descending, from the precipitous nature of the ground. Below the broken sandstone cliffs he found a coarse granite passing into sienite, and a high range of pegmatite descended from the table land far into the valley from east to west, (p. 487). In the flat country from the foot of these lofty hills to Port Essington he meets with nothing but "ironstone and conglomerate with pebbles and pieces of quartz" (p. 490), "rocky sandstone hills with horizontal stratification" (p. 507), "hills one or two hundred feet high, with clayey ironstone" (p. 529), evidently the same rocks as those stretching along the coast. The massive sandstones forming the upper part of the high table land, are almost certainly the same formation as that forming the country between Victoria River and Collier Bay.

We have now merely to describe the head and eastern side of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Leichhardt travelled round the head of the Gulf without meeting with any fresh water river of importance, though he crossed several estuaries of some size which were full of sea water. He speaks of a range of hills of