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 tow