Page:A sketch of the physical structure of Australia.djvu/71

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boundless plains. He not only meets with no river, nor river course, but he fails in finding a single drop of fresh water on the surface of these plains, and he makes three successive journeys of seven or eight days a-piece with only so much water as he can carry with him. To obtain this he descends the cliffs to the beach at three several points where alone the descent appears to have been possible, namely near long. 128° 40', near that of 126° 30', and near that of 124° 10'.

In sailing along this immense extent of unbroken cliffs, an extent of which I can call to mind no other example in the world, Flinders was led to speculate on its being an elevated coral reef, and that behind them he would probably have found an inland sea. Captain Sturt, likewise, in his recent journey into the interior, seems always to have expected to come to some great inland water. This notion of an inland sea always seemed to me, since I have studied the subject, in the highest degree improbable, and we have now seen it in two instances dispelled. There can, I think, be little doubt that these great tertiary plains round the head of the Great Australian Bight stretch with almost unbroken continuity far into the very centre of the island, and in all probability join on to Sturt's great central desert of sand and ironstone.

To return, however, to Mr. Eyre's journey. He describes Mount Rugged and Cape Arid as being principally, if not entirely, granitic. Thence to Cape Le Grand he describes the extension of the