APPENDIX C.
AN ACCOUNT OF SOME GEOLOGICAL SPECIMENS, COLLECTED BY CAPTAIN P.P. KING, IN HIS SURVEY OF THE COASTS OF AUSTRALIA, AND BY ROBERT BROWN, ESQUIRE, ON THE SHORES OF THE GULF OF CARPENTARIA, DURING THE VOYAGE OF CAPTAIN FLINDERS.
BY WILLIAM HENRY FITTON, M.D., F.R.S., V.P.G.S.
[READ BEFORE THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON, 4TH NOVEMBER, 1825.]
The following enumeration of specimens from the coasts of Australia, commences, with the survey of Captain King, on the eastern shore, about the latitude of twenty-two degrees, proceeding northward and westward: and as the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria, previously surveyed by Captain Flinders, were passed over by Captain King, Mr. Brown, who accompanied the former, has been so good as to allow the specimens collected by himself in that part of New Holland, to supply the chasm which would otherwise have existed in the series. Part of the west and north-western coast, examined by Captain King, having been previously visited by the French voyagers, under Captain Baudin, I was desirous of obtaining such information as could be derived from the specimens collected during that expedition, and now remaining at Paris; although I was aware that the premature death of the principal mineralogist, and other unfavourable circumstances, had probably diminished their value:* But the collection from New Holland, at the school of Mines, with a list of which I have been favoured through the kindness of Mr. Brochant de Villiers, relates principally to Van Diemen's Land; and that of the Jardin du Roi, which Mr. Constant Prevost has obliged me with an account of, does not afford the information I had hoped for. I have availed myself of the notices relating to Physical Geography and Geology, which are dispersed through the published accounts of Captain Flinders',** and Baudin's Voyages;*** and these, with the collections above alluded to, form, I believe, the only sources of information at present existing in Europe, respecting the geological structure and productions of the north and western coasts of Australia.
(*Footnote. M. Depuch, the mineralogist, died during the progress of the voyage, in 1803; and, unfortunately, none of his manuscripts were preserved. M. Peron, the zoologist, after publishing, in 1807, the first volume of the account of the expedition, died in 1810, before the appearance of the second volume. Voyage etc. 1 page 417, 418; and 2 page 163.)
(**Footnote. A Voyage to Terra Australis, etc., in the years 1801, 1802, and 1803, by Matthew Flinders, Commander of the Investigator. Two volumes quarto with an atlas folio; London 1814.)
(***Footnote. Voyage de Decouverte aux Terres Australes etc. Tome 1 redige par M. F. Peron, naturaliste de l'Expedition, Paris 1807. Tome 2 redige par M. Peron et M. L. Freycinet 1816. A third volume of this work, under the title of Navigation et Geographie, was published by Capt. Freycinet in 1815. It contains a brief and clear account of the proceedings of the expedition; and affords some particulars connected with the physical geography of the places described, which are not to be found in the other volumes.)
In order to avoid the interruption which would be occasioned by detail, I shall prefix to the list of specimens in Captain King's and Mr. Brown's collections, a general sketch of the coast from whence they come, deduced, principally, from the large charts,* and from the narratives of Captains Flinders and King, with a summary of the geological information derived from the specimens. But I have thought it necessary to subjoin a more detailed list of the specimens themselves; on account of the great distance from each other of many of the places where they were found, and of the general interest attached to the productions of a country so very remote, of which the greater part is not likely to be often visited by geologists. The situation of such of the places mentioned, as are not to be found in the reduced chart annexed to the present publication, will be sufficiently indicated by the names of the adjacent places.
(*Footnote. These charts have been published by the Admiralty for general sale.)
GENERAL SKETCH OF THE COAST.
The North-eastern coast of New South Wales, from the latitude of about 28 degrees, has a direction from south-east to north-west; and ranges of mountains are visible from the sea, with little interruption, as far north as Cape Weymouth, between the latitude of 12 and 13 degrees. From within Cape Palmerston, west of the Northumberland Islands, near the point where Captain King began his surveys, a high and rocky range, of very irregular outline, and apparently composed of primitive rocks, is continued for more than one hundred and fifty miles, without any break; and after a remarkable opening, about the latitude of 21 degrees, is again resumed. Several of the summits, visible from the sea, in the front of this range, are of considerable elevation: Mount Dryander, on the promontory which terminates in Cape Gloucester, being more than four thousand five hundred feet high. Mount Eliot, with a peaked summit, a little to the south of Cape Cleveland, is visible at twenty-five leagues distance; and Mount Hinchinbrook, immediately upon the shore, south of Rockingham Bay, is more than two thousand feet high. From the south of Cape Grafton to Cape Tribulation, precipitous hills, bordered by low land, form the coast; but the latter Cape itself consists of a lofty group, with several peaks, the highest of which is visible from the sea at twenty leagues. The heights from thence towards the north decline gradually, as the mountainous ranges approach the shore, which they join at Cape Weymouth, about latitude 12 degrees; and from that point northward, to Cape York, the land in general is comparatively low, nor do any detached points of considerable elevation appear there. But about midway between Cape Grenville and Cape York, on the mainland south-west of Cairncross Island, a flat summit called Pudding-Pan Hill is conspicuous; and its shape, which differs from that of the hills on the east coast in general, remarkably resembles that of the mountains of the north and west coasts, to which names expressing their form have been applied.*
(*Footnote. Jane's Table-Land, south-east of Princess Charlotte's Bay (about latitude 14 degrees 30 minutes) and Mount Adolphus, in one of the islands (a
bout latitude 10 degrees 40 minutes) off Cape York, have also flat summits. King manuscripts.)
The line of the coast above described retires at a point which corresponds with the decline of its level; and immediately on the north of Cape Melville is thrown back to the west; so that the high land about that Cape stands out like a shoulder, more than forty miles beyond the coastline between Princess Charlotte's Bay and the north-eastern point of Australia.
The land near Cape York is not more than four or five hundred feet high, and the islands off that point are nearly of the same elevation.
The bottom of several of the bays, on the eastern coast, not having been explored, it is still probable that rivers, or considerable mountain streams, may exist there.
Along this eastern line of shore, granite has been found throughout a space of nearly five hundred miles; at Cape Cleveland; Cape Grafton; Endeavour River; Lizard Island; and at Clack's Island, on the north-west of the rocky mass which forms Cape Melville. And rocks of the trap formation have been obtained in three detached points among the islands off the shore; in the Percy Isles, about latitude 21 degrees 40 minutes; Sunday Island, north of Cape Grenville, about latitude 12 degrees; and in Good's Island, on the north-west of Cape York, latitude 10 degrees 34 minutes.
The Gulf of Carpentaria having been fully examined by Captain Flinders, was not visited by Captain King; but the following account has been deduced from the voyage and charts of the former, combined with the specimens collected by Mr. Brown, who has also favoured me with an extract from the notes taken by himself on that part of the coast.
The land, on the east and south of the Gulf of Carpentaria, is so low, that for a space of nearly six hundred miles--from Endeavour Strait to a range of hills on the mainland, west of Wellesley Islands, at the bottom of the gulf--no part of the coast is higher than a ship's masthead.* Some of the land in Wellesley islands is higher than the main; but the largest island is, probably, not more than one hundred and fifty feet in height;** and low-wooded hills occur on the mainland, from thence to Sir Edward Pellew's group. The rock observed on the shore at Coen River, the only point on the eastern side of the Gulf where Captain Flinders landed, was calcareous sandstone of recent concretional formation.
(*Footnote. Flinders Charts Plate 14.)
(**Footnote. Flinders Volume 2 page 158.)
In Sweer's Island, one of Wellesley's Isles, a hill of about fifty or sixty feet in height was covered with a sandy calcareous stone, having the appearance of concretions rising irregularly about a foot above the general surface, without any distinct ramifications. The specimens from this place have evidently the structure of stalactites, which seem to have been formed in sand; and the reddish carbonate of lime, by which the sand has been agglutinated, is of the same character with that of the west coast, where a similar concreted limestone occurs in great abundance.
The western shore of the Gulf of Carpentaria is somewhat higher, and from Limmen's Bight to the latitude of Groote Eylandt, is lined by a range of low hills. On the north of the latter place, the coast becomes irregular and broken; the base of the country apparently consisting of primitive rocks, and the upper part of the hills of a reddish sandstone; some of the specimens of which are identical with that which occurs at Goulburn and Sims Islands on the north coast, and is very widely distributed on the north-west. The shore at the bottom of Melville Bay is stated by Captain Flinders to consist of low cliffs of pipe-clay, for a space of about eight miles in extent from east to west; and similar cliffs of pipe-clay are described as occurring at Goulburn Islands (see the plate, volume 1) and at Lethbridge Bay, on the north of Melville Island: both of which places are considerably to the west of the Gulf of Carpentaria.
Morgan's Island, a small islet in Blue-Mud Bay, on the north-west of Groote Eylandt, is composed of clink-stone; and other rocks of the trap-formation occur in several places on this coast.
The north of Blue-Mud Bay has furnished also specimens of ancient sandstone; with columnar rocks, probably of clink-stone. Round Hill, near Point Grindall, a promontory on the north of Morgan's Island, is composed, at the base, of granite; and Mount Caledon, on the west side of Caledon Bay, seems likewise to consist of that rock, as does also Melville Island. This part of the coast has afforded the ferruginous oxide of manganese: and brown hematite is found hereabouts in considerable quantity, on the shore at the base of the cliffs; forming the cement of a breccia, which contains fragments of sandstone, and in which the ferruginous matter appears to be of very recent production; resembling, perhaps, the hematite observed at Edinburgh by Professor Jameson, around cast-iron pipes which had lain for some time in sand.*
(*Footnote. Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, July 1825 page 193.)
The general range of the coast, it will be observed, from Limmen's Bight to Cape Arnhem, is from south-west to north-east; and three conspicuous ranges of islands on the north-western entrance of the Gulf of Carpentaria, the appearance of which is so remarkable as to have attracted the attention of Captain Flinders,* have the same general direction: a fact which is probably not unconnected with the general structure of the country. The prevailing rock in all these islands appears to be sandstone.
(Flinders Volume 2 page 158. See hereafter.)
The line of the main coast from Point Dale to the bottom of Castlereagh Bay, where Captain King's survey was resumed, has also a direction from south-west to north-east, parallel to that of the ranges of islands just mentioned. The low land near the north coast in Castlereagh Bay, and from thence to Goulburn Islands, is intersected by one of the few rivers yet discovered in this part of Australia, a tortuous and shallow stream, named Liverpool River, which has been traced inland to about forty miles from the coast, through a country not more than three feet in general elevation above high-water mark; the banks being low and muddy, and thickly wooded: And this description is applicable also to the Alligator Rivers on the south-east of Van Diemen's Gulf, and to the surrounding country. The outline of the Wellington Hills, however, on the mainland between the Liverpool and Alligator Rivers, is jagged and irregular; this range being thus remarkably contrasted with the flat summits which appear to be very numerous on the north-western coast.
The specimens from Goulburn Islands consist of reddish sandstone, not to be distinguished from that which occurs beneath the coal formation in England. On the west of these islands the coast is more broken, and the outline is irregular: but the elevation is inconsiderable; the general height in Cobourg Peninsula not being above one hundred and fifty feet above the sea, and that of the hills not more than from three to four hundred feet.
On this part of the coast, several hills are remarkable for the flatness of their tops; and the general outline of many of the islands, as seen on the horizon, is very striking and peculiar. Thus Mount Bedwell and Mount Roe, on the south of Cobourg Peninsula; Luxmoore Head, at the west end of Melville Island; the Barthelemy Hills, south of Cape Ford; Mount Goodwin, south of Port Keats; Mount Cockburn, and several of the hills adjacent to Cambridge Gulf, the names given to which during the progress of the survey sufficiently indicate their form, as House-roofed, Bastion, Flat-top, and Square-top Hills; Mount Casuarina, about forty miles north-west of Cambridge Gulf; a hill near Cape Voltaire; Steep-Head, Port Warrender; and several of the islands off that port, York Sound, and Prince Regent's River; Cape Cuvier, about latitude 24 degrees; and, still further south, the whole of Moresby's flat-topped Range, are all distinguished by their linear and nearly horizontal outlines: and except in a few instances, as Mount Cockburn, Steep-Head, Mounts Trafalgar and Waterloo (which look more like hills of floetz-trap) they have very much the aspect of the summits in the coal formation.*
(*Footnote. Captain King, however, has informed me, that in some of these cases, the shape of the hill is really that of a roof, or hayrick; the transverse section being angular, and the horizontal top an edge.)
Sketch 1 of some of the islands off Admiralty Gulf (looking southward from the north-east end of Cassini Island, about latitude 13 degrees 50 minutes, East longitude 125 degrees 50 minutes) has some resemblance to one of the views in Peron's Atlas (plate 6 figure 7): and the outline of the Iles Forbin (plate 8 figure 5, of the same series) also exhibits remarkably the peculiar form represented in several of Captain King's drawings (Sketch 2).
SKETCH 1: ISLANDS OFF ADMIRALTY GULF, LOOKING SOUTHWARD FROM THE NORTH-EAST END OF CASSINI ISLAND.
Left to right: Corneille, Fenelon, Descartes, and Pascal Islands, Hills on Cape Voltaire, Condillac Island, and East end of Cassini Island (Peron's Atlas, plate 6, figure 7) and the outline of the Iles Forbin (Peron's Atlas, plate 8, figure 5).
SKETCH 2: ISLANDS OFF ADMIRALTY GULF, LOOKING SOUTHWARD FROM THE NORTH-EAST END OF CASSINI ISLAND. Left to right: Peak upon Cape Voltaire and Condillac Island, bearing South, two miles distant. Several drawings of Captain King.
SKETCH 3: TWO CONSPICUOUS HILLS NORTH-EAST OF PRINCE-REGENT'S RIVER. Left to right: Mount Trafalgar and Mount Waterloo.
The red colour of the cliffs on the north-west and west coasts, is also an appearance which is frequently noticed on the sketches taken by Captain King and his officers. This is conspicuous in the neighbourhood of Cape Croker; at Darch Island and Palm Bay; at Point Annesley and Point Coombe in Mountnorris Bay; in the land about Cape Van Diemen, and on the north-west of Bathurst Island. The cliffs on Roe's River (Prince Frederic's Harbour) as might have been expected from the specimens, are described as of a reddish colour; Cape Leveque is of the same hue; and the northern limit of Shark's Bay, Cape Cuvier of the French, latitude 24 degrees 13 minutes, which is like an enormous bastion, may be distinguished at a considerable distance by its full red colour.*
(*Footnote. Freycinet page 195.)
It is on the bank of the channel which separates Bathurst and Melville Islands, near the north-western extremity of New Holland, that a new colony has recently been established: (see Captain King's Narrative volume 2.) A permanent station under the superintendence of a British officer, in a country so very little known, and in a situation so remote from any other English settlement, affords an opportunity of collecting objects of natural history, and of illustrating various points of great interest to physical geography and meteorology, which it is to be hoped will not be neglected. And as a very instructive collection, for the general purposes of geology, can readily be obtained in such situations, by attending to a few precautions, I have thought that some brief directions on this subject would not be out of place in the present publication; and have subjoined them to the list of specimens at the close of this paper.*
(*Footnote. See hereafter.)
In the vicinity of Cambridge Gulf, Captain King states, the character of the country is entirely changed; and irregular ranges of detached rocky hills composed of sandstone, rising abruptly from extensive plains of low level land, supersede the low and woody coast, that occupies almost uninterruptedly the space between this inlet and Cape Wessel, a distance of more than six hundred miles. Cambridge Gulf, which is nothing more than a swampy arm of the sea, extends to about eighty miles inland, in a southern direction: and all the specimens from its vicinity precisely resemble the older sandstones of the confines of England and Wales.* The View (volume 1 plate) represents in the distance Mount Cockburn, at the head of Cambridge Gulf; the flat rocky top of which was supposed to consist of sandstone, but has also the aspect of the trap-formation. The strata in Lacrosse Island, at the entrance of the Gulf, rise toward the north-west, at an angle of about 30 degrees with the horizon: their direction consequently being from north-east to south-west.
(*Footnote. I use the term Old Red Sand Stone, in the acceptation of Messrs. Buckland and Conybeare, Observations on the South Western Coal District of England. Geological Transactions Second Series volume 1. Captain King's specimens from Lacrosse Island are not to be distinguished from the slaty strata of that formation, in the banks of the Avon, about two miles below Clifton.)
From hence to Cape Londonderry, towards the south, is an uniform coast of moderate elevation; and from that point to Cape Leveque, although the outline may be in a general view considered as ranging from north-east to south-west,* the coast is remarkably indented, and the adjoining sea irregularly studded with very numerous islands. The specimens from this tract consist almost entirely of sandstone, resembling that of Cambridge Gulf, Goulburn Island, and the Gulf of Carpentaria; with which the trap-formation appears to be associated.
(*Footnote. The large chart Sheet 5 best shows the general range of the shore, from the islands filling up the inlets.)
York Sound, one of the principal inlets on this part of the coast, is bounded by precipitous rocks, from one to two hundred feet in height; and some conical rocky peaks, which not improbably consist of quartz-rock, were noticed on the eastern side of the entrance. An unpublished sketch, by Captain King, shows that the banks of Hunter's River, one of the branches of York Sound, at seven or eight miles from its opening, are composed of sandstone, in beds of great regularity; and this place is also remarkable for a copious spring of fresh water, one of the rarest phenomena of these thirsty and inhospitable shores.*
(*Footnote. Narrative 1.)
The most considerable inlet, however, which has yet been discovered in this quarter of Australia, is Prince Regent's River, about thirty miles to the south-west of York Sound, the course of which is almost rectilinear for about fifty miles in a south-eastern direction; a fact which will probably be found to be connected with the geological structure of the country. The general character of the banks, which are lofty and abrupt, is precisely the same with that of the rivers falling into York Sound; and the level of the country does not appear to be higher in the interior than near the coast. The banks are from two to four hundred feet in height, and consist of close-grained siliceous sandstone, of a reddish hue;* and the view (Plate above) shows that the beds are nearly horizontal, and very regularly disposed; the cascade there represented being about one hundred and sixty feet in height, and the beds from six to twelve feet in thickness. Two conspicuous hills, which Captain King has named Mounts Trafalgar and Waterloo, on the north-east of Prince-Regent's River, not far from its entrance, are remarkable for cap-like summits, much resembling those which characterize the trap formation. (Sketch 3.)
(*Footnote. Narrative 1 and 2.)
The coast on the south of this remarkable river, to Cape Leveque, has not yet been thoroughly examined; but it appears from Captain King's Chart (Number 5) to be intersected by several inlets of considerable size, to trace which to their termination is still a point of great interest in the physical geography of New Holland. The space thus left to be explored, from the Champagny Isles to Cape Leveque, corresponds to more than one hundred miles in a direct line; within which extent nothing but islands and detached portions of land have yet been observed. One large inlet especially, on the south-east of Cape Leveque, appears to afford considerable promise of a river; and the rise of the tide within the Buccaneer's Archipelago, where there is another unexplored opening, is no less than thirty-seven feet.
The outline of the coast about Cape Leveque itself is low, waving, and rounded; and the hue for which the cliffs are remarkable in so many parts of the coast to the north, is also observable here, the colour of the rocks at Point Coulomb being of a deep red: but on the south of the high ground near that Point, the rugged stony cliffs are succeeded by a long tract, which to the French voyagers (for it was not examined by Captain King) appeared to consist of low and sandy land, fronted by extensive shoals. It has hitherto been seen, however, only at a distance; so that a space of more than three hundred miles, from Point Gantheaume nearly to Cape Lambert, still remains to be accurately surveyed.
Depuch Island, east of Dampier's Archipelago, about latitude 20 degrees 30 minutes, is described by the French naturalists as consisting in a great measure of columnar rocks, which they supposed to be VOLCANIC; and they found reason to believe that the adjoining continent was of the same materials.* It is not improbable, however, that this term was applied to columns belonging to the trap formation, since no burning mountain has been any where observed on the coast of New Holland: nor do the drawings of Depuch Island, made on board Captain King's vessel, give reason to suppose that it is at present eruptive. Captain King's specimens from Malus Island, in Dampier's Archipelago (sixty miles farther west) consist of greenstone and amygdaloid.
(*Footnote. Peron volume 1 page 130.)
The coast is again broken and rugged about Dampier's Archipelago, latitude 20 degrees 30 minutes; and on the south of Cape Preston, in latitude 21 degrees, is an opening of about fifteen miles in width, between rocky hills, which has not been explored. From thence to the bottom of Exmouth Gulf, more than one hundred and fifty miles, the coast is low and sandy, and does not exhibit any prominences. The west coast of Exmouth Gulf itself is formed by a promontory of level land, terminating in the North-west Cape; and from thence to the south-west, as far as Cape Cuvier, the general height of the coast is from four to five hundred feet; nor are any mountains visible over the coast range.
Several portions of the shore between Shark's Bay and Cape Naturaliste have been described in the account of Commodore Baudin's Expedition; but some parts still remain to be surveyed. From the specimens collected by Captain King and the French descriptions, it appears that the islands on the west of Shark's Bay abound in a concretional calcareous rock of very recent formation, similar to what is found on the shore in several other parts of New Holland, especially in the neighbourhood of King George's Sound; and which is abundant also on the coast of the West Indian Islands, and of the Mediterranean. Captain King's specimens of this production are from Dirk Hartog's and Rottnest Islands; and M. Peron states that the upper parts of Bernier and Dorre Islands are composed of a rock of the same nature. This part of the coast is covered in various places with extensive dunes of sand; but the nature of the base, on which both these and the calcareous formation repose, has not been ascertained.
The general direction of the rocky shore, from North-west Cape to Dirk Hartog's Island, is from the east of north to the west of south. On the south of the latter place the land turns towards the east. High, rocky and reddish cliffs have been seen indistinctly about latitude 27 degrees; and a coast of the same aspect has been surveyed, from Red Point, about latitude 28 degrees, for more than eighty miles to the south-west. The hills called Moresby's flat-topped Range, of which Mount Fairfax, latitude 28 degrees 45 minutes, is the highest point, occupy a space of more than fifty miles from north to south.
Rottnest Island and its vicinity, latitude 32 degrees, contains in abundance the calcareous concretions already mentioned; which seem there to consist in a great measure of the remains of recent shells, in considerable variety. The islands of this part of the shore have been described by MM. Peron and Freycinet;* and the coast to the south, down to Cape Leeuwin, the south-western extremity of New Holland, having been sufficiently examined by the French voyagers, was not surveyed by Captain King.
(*Footnote. Peron volume 2 page 168 etc.)
Swan River (Riviere des Cygnes) upon this part of the coast, latitude 31 degrees 25 minutes to 32 degrees, was examined by the French expedition, to the distance of about twenty leagues from its mouth; and found still to contain salt water. The rock in its neighbourhood consisted altogether of sandy and calcareous incrustations, in horizontal beds, enclosing, it is stated, shells, and the roots and even trunks of trees. Between this river and Cape Peron, a "great bay" was left unexplored.*
(*Footnote. Peron volume 1 page 179. Freycinet page 5. 170.)
The prominent mass of land, which stands out from the main, between Cape Naturaliste and Cape Leeuwin, and runs nearly on the meridian for more than fifty miles, seems to have a base of granite, which, at Cape Naturaliste, is said to be stratified.* The same rock also occurs, among Captain King's specimens, from Bald-head in King George's Sound; but nearly on the summit of that hill, which is about five hundred feet high, were Found the ramified calcareous concretions, erroneously considered as corals by Vancouver and others;** but which appear, from Captain King's specimens, to be nothing more than a variety of the recent limestone so abundant throughout these shores.
(*Footnote. Peron volume 1 page 69.)
(**Footnote. Vancouver 1 49. D'Entrecasteaux 2 175. Freycinet 105. Flinders 1 63. See the detailed descriptions hereafter; and Captain King's Narrative volume 1.)
The south coast, and the southern portion of the east coast of Australia, which were surveyed by Captain Flinders, are described in the account of his voyage, and do not come within the object of the present paper.