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it forms a succession of terraces and table-lands, one of which, he says, is curiously worn by degradation into a number of columns of sandstone rock, p. 97, vol. i. He mentions the same ranges about the Glenelg (p. 162), and at the farthest point he reached, he describes Stephens' Range as of sandstone, running N.N.E. and S.S.W. with lateral spurs or branches, (p. 265.)
Captain Stokes says that the height of Mount Trafalgar and Waterloo, near Prince Regent's Inlet, is about 900 feet. He describes hills of similar sandstone as running up the estuary of his Victoria River, where in Entrance Island, he says, it has a marked dip to the S.E. and at another point he speaks of hills composed of white compact sandstone, dipping S.E. at 30°. Inside Point Pearce, in this inlet of his Victoria River, is one point called "Fossil Head," from which fossils were procured, but which were unfortunately either lost or destroyed.[1] In a letter to myself, Captain Stokes described them as "casts of shells, not of a recent appearance." I am aware of the very slender foundation for any authoritative opinion on the age of these rocks from the data here given, but the
- ↑ I examined the boxes of rocks brought home by Captain Stokes, which were lying at the Admiralty, but did not succeed in finding any fossils. Mr. Darwin had previously examined them, but had been equally unsuccessful. The lumps of rock from the neighbourhood were like the palæozoic sandstone of New South Wales
