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.)

...

DETAILED LIST OF SPECIMENS.

The specimens mentioned in the following list have been compared with
some of those of England and other countries, principally in the cabinets
of the Geological Society, and of Mr. Greenough; and with a collection
from part of the confines of the primitive tracts of England and North
Wales, formed by Mr. Arthur Aikin, and now in his own possession. Captain
King's collection has been presented to the Geological Society; and
duplicates of Mr. Brown's specimens are deposited in the British Museum.

RODD'S BAY, on the East Coast, discovered by Captai