Page:A sketch of the physical structure of Australia.djvu/99

87 river of some magnitude, greater than any of the inconsiderable streams which alone have been discovered. It appears to me that the only chance of any exception to this flat and barren state of the interior being discovered is that springing from the possibility of the ranges of palæozoic formation between Collier Bay and the Gulf of Carpentaria, increasing in magnitude in the interior or loftier ranges springing up parallel to their strike, and that from these springs and streams may arise sufficient to fertilize the adjacent country, although not enough to form a river large and full enough to force its way to the coast.

It may, perhaps, illustrate my meaning in the preceding remarks on the climate of Australia if we briefly compare it with the part of South America, in about the same latitudes. There we have a continent exposed to the perennial E.S.E. wind from 10&deg; and 15&deg; of latitude, to 25&deg; and 35&deg;, and to westerly winds almost equally constant south of 35&deg;. In South America, however, the principal mountain chain, the Andes, is on the western coast instead of the eastern as in Australia. The consequence is that south of lat. 35&deg;, or in the region of the westerly winds we have a desert on the eastern side of the range in the plains of Patagonia, watered only by streams that rise in the perpetual snow of the Andes, while on the western side the hills and the belt of land between the mountains and the sea with the adjacent islands from Cape Horn to Valparaiso are