Page:Handbook of Western Australia.djvu/49

Rh George's Sound, however, in the centre of this coast, is accessible to vessels of any class and at all times, and has a circular area of some six miles in diameter, protected to the East by Michaelmas and Breaksea, rocky islands, and surrounded for the most part by granitic hills; on the North it terminates in a sandy beach of three miles in length, on the East of which is Oyster Harbor, accessible to vessels drawing 14 feet, and carrying that depth to the mouth of King River, having a small area of deeper water within; to the South-East is an inner harbor, named Princess Royal, of which, though a great portion to the West is, as in Oyster Harbor, shallow, it is on the North capable of receiving the largest vessels; and here, at the town of Albany, at the base of Mt. Gardner, a granitic mass rising 860 feet above the sea, the mail steamers deliver their mails and passengers, and take in coal for their further voyage. This harbor is entirely landlocked, a long point crossing it to the East, rising in Quarantine hill, 260 feet, and the entrance being only three cables broad. The survey of King George's Sound is completed and published, as are those of the ports of Fremantle and Champion Bay.

A chain of fresh water lakes stretches to the North of Perth water for 30 miles towards the Moore River; and from thence to the Bowes River, beyond Champion Bay, the granite floor has a more even surface, and the sandstones and limestones are more largely and regularly developed, so that the ranges throughout this district, of which the principal near the coast are Gardner and Moresby's flat-topped ranges, have a level surface, varied only by the valleys of the rivers and by detached conical hills. Granite, however, forms elevated masses to the North of Moore River in Mounts Peron and Lesueur,