r bays lying between them are backed by sandy beaches. These
vast buttresses appear to be the southern extremities of the mountains of
Van Diemen's land; which, it can hardly be doubted, have once projected
into the sea far beyond their present abrupt termination, and have been
united with the now detached land, De Witt's Isles.

If a corresponding height of similar strata was observable on the islands
and on the main, it would amount to a proof that they were originally
connected; but this proof was wanting. The same kind of strata appeared
in both; but, as far as could be determined in passing hastily by, the
necessary correspondence seemed to be deficient. They did not land upon
either the islands or the main; but two kinds of rock, one with strata
and the other without, were plainly discernible. That without strata
formed by far the largest part; it appeared whitish and shining, was
certainly a quartz, and probably a granite. The layers of the rock with
strata were of various dark colours, and perfectly distinct.

It was evident, that land so much exposed to the violence of extensive
oceans must have undergone some very material changes, by the incessant
attrition of their vast waves. Two of the isles, either from this or a
more sudden cause, have so far deviated from their centre, that their
parallel strata form angles of between sixteens and eighteen degrees in
one instance, and in another between twenty-five and thirty degrees, with
the horizontal line. But it is difficult to explain, by the action of
water, how a large block of the white stone without strata is caused to
overhang an almost perpendicular corner of one of the islands, which
beneath that block consists of the dark coloured stone lying in strata.

De Witt's Isles, (so named, probably, by Tasman) twelve in number, are of
various sizes. The two largest are from three to four miles in circuit.
Their sides are steep, but their height is inferior to that of the main.
The largest is the lowest. The smaller isles are little more than large
lumps of rock, of which that named by Captain Cook the mew stone is the
southernmost. Their aspect, like that of the main, bespeaks extreme
sterility; but, superior to the greater part of it, they produce a
continued covering of brush; and upon the sloping sides of some of their
gullies are a few stinted, half dead gum trees.

They could not account for the vestiges of fires that appeared upon the
two inner large islan