(*Footnote. It is deserving of notice, that the coast of Timor, the nearest land on the north-west, at the distance of about 300 miles, is also nearly straight, and parallel to the Coast of New Holland in this quarter: part of the mountainous range, of which that island consists, being probably more than 9000 feet high; and its length, from the north-eastern extremity to the South-West of the adjoining island of Rottee, about 300 miles. But, unfortunately for the hypothesis, a chain of islands immediately on the north of Timor, is continued nearly in a right line for more than 1200 miles (from Sermatta Island to the south-eastern extremity of Java) in a direction FROM EAST TO WEST. This chain, however, contains several volcanoes, including those of Sumbawa, the eruption of which, in 1815, was of extraordinary violence. See Royal Inst. Journal volume 1 1816 page 248 etc.
At Lacrosse Island, in the mouth of Cambridge Gulf, on the north-west coast of New Holland, the beds rise to the North-West: their direction consequently is from South-West to North-East; and the rise towards the high land of Timor. The intervening sea is very shallow.)
(**Footnote. A remarkable case of this kind, which has not, I believe, been noticed, occurs in the Mediterranean; and is conspicuous in the new chart of that sea, by Captain W.H. Smyth. The eastern coast of Corsica and Sardinia, for a space of more than two hundred geographical miles being nearly rectilinear, in a direction from north to south; and, Captain Smyth has informed me, consisting almost entirely of granite, or, at least, of primitive rocks. The coast of Norway affords another instance of the same description; and the details of the ranges in the interior of England furnish several examples of the same kind, on a smaller scale.)
(***Footnote. The coastlines nearly at rightangles to those above-mentioned--from the South-East of the Gulf of Carpentaria to Limmen's Bight, from Cape Arnhem to Cape Croker, and from Cape Domett to Cape Londonderry--have also a certain degree of linearity; but much less remarkable, than those which run from South-West to North-East.)
The horn-like projection of the land, on the east of the Gulf of Carpentaria, is a very prominent feature in the general map of Australia, and may possibly have some connexion with the structure just pointed out. The western shore of this horn, from the bottom of the gulf to Endeavour Straits, being very low; while the land on the east coast rises in proceeding towards the south, and after passing Cape Weymouth, latitude 12 degrees 30 minutes, is in general mountainous and abrupt; and Captain King's specimens from the north-east coast show that granite is found in so many places along this line as to make it probable that primitive rocks may form the general basis of the country in that quarter; since a lofty chain of mountains is continued on the south of Cape Tribulation, not far from the shore, throughout a space of more than five hundred miles. It would carry this hypothesis too far to infer that these primitive ranges are connected with the mountains on the west of the English settlements near Port Jackson, etc., where Mr. Scott has described the coal-measures as occupying the coast from Port Stevens, about latitude 33 degrees to Cape Howe, latitude 37 degrees, and as succeeded, on the eastern ascent of the Blue Mountains, by sandstone, and this again by primitive strata:* But it may be noticed that Wilson's Promontory, the most southern point of New South Wales, and the principal islands in Bass Strait, contain granite; and that primitive rocks occur extensively in Van Diemen's Land.
(*Footnote. Annals of Philosophy June 1824.)
The uniformity of the coastlines is remarkable also in some other quarters of Australia; and their direction, as well as that of the principal openings, has a general tendency to a course from the west of south to the east of north. This, for example, is the general range of the south-east coast, from Cape Howe, about latitude 37 degrees, to Cape Byron, latitude 29 degrees, or even to Sandy Cape, latitude 25 degrees; and of the western coast, from the south of the islands which enclose Shark's Bay, latitude 26 degrees, to North-west Cape, about latitude 22 degrees. From Cape Hamelin, latitude 34 degrees 12 minutes, to Cape Naturaliste, latitude 33 degrees 26 minutes, the coast runs nearly on the meridian. The two great fissures of the south coast, Spencer's, and St. Vincent's Gulfs, as well as the great northern chasm of the Gulf of Carpentaria, have a corresponding direction; and Captain Flinders (Chart 4) represents a high ridge of rocky and barren mountains, on the east of Spencer's Gulf, as continued, nearly from north to south, through a space of more than one hundred geographical miles, between latitude 32 degrees 7 minutes and 34 degrees. Mount Brown, one of the summits of this ridge, about latitude 32 degrees 30 minutes, being visible at the distance of twenty leagues.
The tendency of all this evidence is somewhat in favour of a general parallelism in the range of the strata, and perhaps of the existence of primary ranges of mountains on the east of Australia in general, from the coast about Cape Weymouth* to the shore between Spencer's Gulf and Cape Howe. But it must not be forgotten, that the distance between these shores is more than a thousand miles in a direct line; about as far as from the west coast of Ireland to the Adriatic, or double the distance between the Baltic and the Mediterranean. If, however, future researches should confirm the indications above mentioned, a new case will be supplied in support of the principle long since advanced by Mr. Michell,** which appears (whatever theory be formed to explain it) to be established by geological observation in so many other parts of the world, that the outcrop of the inclined beds, throughout the stratified portion of the globe, is everywhere parallel to the longer ridges of mountains, towards which, also, the elevation of the strata is directed. But in the present state of our information respecting Australia, all such general views are so very little more than mere conjecture, that the desire to furnish ground for new inquiry, is, perhaps, the best excuse that can be offered for having proposed them.
(*Footnote. The possible correspondence of the great Australian Bight, the coast of which in general is of no great elevation, with the deeply-indented Gulf of Carpentaria, tending, as it were, to a division of this great island into two, accords with this hypothesis of mountain ranges: but the distance between these recesses, over the land at the nearest points, is not less than a thousand English miles. The granite, on the south coast, at Investigator's Islands, and westward, at Middle Island, Cape Le Grand, King George's Sound, and Cape Naturaliste, is very wide of the line above-mentioned, and nothing is yet known of its relations.)
(**Footnote. On the Cause of Earthquakes. Philosophical Transactions 1760 volume 51 page 566 to 585, 586.)