GEOLOGICAL QUERIES.
Previous to my departure from England, I had the pleasure of hearing a valuable paper by my friend Mr. Darwin, on the formation of coral islands,* read at the Geological Society; my attention being thus awakened to the subject, the interest of this important paper was to me greatly enhanced by a series of queries, kindly furnished by Mr. Darwin, and drawn up with a view to confirm or invalidate his views, his purpose being to elicit truth from a combination of well attested facts, and by inducing the research of others to further the objects of science.
Among these queries was the following: "Are there masses of coral or beds of shells some yards above high water mark, on the coast fronting the barrier reef?"
(*Footnote. See also the Hydrographer's Instructions supra.)
RAISED BEACHES.
Captain King, in answer to the above states, that some of the islands within the reef have beaches of broken coral; and, as an instance, he refers to Fitzroy island.
I will, myself, here adduce what may be deemed an important fact; and which, if allowed its due weight, will go far to weaken the arguments brought forward in favour of the subsidence of the North-East coast of Australia. I found a flat nearly a quarter of a mile broad, in a quiet sheltered cove, within the cape, thickly strewed with dead coral and shells, forming, in fact, a perfect bed of them--a raised beach of twelve feet above high-water mark. On the sandy beach fronting it, also a few feet above high-water mark, was a concretion of sand and dead coral, forming a mass about fifty yards long. Fronting this, for about the width of one hundred and fifty feet, was a wall of coral with two feet water on it; and immediately outside, five fathoms, with a fine sandy bottom, slightly sloping off. The annexed woodcut will better explain what we have here endeavoured to bring before the reader.
SECTION OF THE COAST.
This small coral-strewed flat where our observations were made, and the results of which are as follows; latitude 19 degrees 42 3/4 minutes South; longitude 15 degrees 36 1/2 minutes East of Port Essington, is surrounded by an amphitheatre of hills. Had it been on the seaward side of the Cape, I might have been readier to imagine that it could have been thrown up by the sea in its ordinary action, or when suddenly disturbed by an earthquake wave; but as the contrary is the case, it seemed impossible to come to any other conclusion, than that an upheaval had taken place. The whole of Cape Upstart is a granite mass, and its crests are covered with boulders, some of which have rolled down and form rather conspicuous objects on the shores and points of the bay.