It would carry this hypothesis too far to infer that these primitive ranges are connected with the mountains on the west of the English settlements near Port Jackson, etc., where Mr.Scott has described the coal-measures as occupying the coast from Port Stevens, about latitude 33 degrees to Cape Howe, latitude 37 degrees, and as succeeded, on the eastern ascent of the Blue Mountains, by sandstone, and this again by primitive strata:* But it may be noticed that Wilson's Promontory, the most southern point of New South Wales, and the principal islands in Bass Strait, contain granite; and that primitive rocks occur extensively in Van Diemen's Land.
(*Footnote.

Annals of Philosophy June 1824.) The uniformity of the coastlines is remarkable also in some other quarters of Australia; and their direction, as well as that of the principal openings, has a general tendency to a course from the west of south to the east of north.

This, for example, is the general range of the south-east coast, from Cape Howe, about latitude 37 degrees, to Cape Byron, latitude 29 degrees, or even to Sandy Cape, latitude 25 degrees; and of the western coast, from the south of the islands which enclose Shark's Bay, latitude 26 degrees, to North-west Cape, about latitude 22 degrees.

From Cape Hamelin, latitude 34 degrees 12 minutes, to Cape Naturaliste, latitude 33 degrees 26 minutes, the coast runs nearly on the meridian.

The two great fissures of the south coast, Spencer's, and St.
Vincent's Gulfs, as well as the great northern chasm of the Gulf of Carpentaria, have a corresponding direction; and Captain Flinders (Chart 4) represents a high ridge of rocky and barren mountains, on the east of Spencer's Gulf, as continued, nearly from north to south, through a space of more than one hundred geographical miles, between latitude 32 degrees 7 minutes and 34 degrees.