A large rounded pebble, consisting of ferruginous granular quartz, of a dark purplish-brown colour, and considerable density, was found here; near a fireplace of the natives, by whom it is used for making their hatchets; with a fragment of a calcareous incrustation, like that of the west coast hereafter mentioned.
The next specimens in Captain King's collection--a space of more than three hundred miles on this coast not having been examined by him--are from MALUS ISLAND, in Dampier's Archipelago (see Narrative volume 1) they consist of fine-grained greenstone, and what appears to be a basaltic rock, of amygdaloidal structure.
DIRK HARTOG'S ISLAND, west of Shark's Bay.

A compound of rather fine-grained translucent quartzose sand, cemented by carbonate of lime, of various shades of reddish and yellowish grey.

This stone has in some places the structure of a breccia; the angles of the imbedded fragments, which are from half an inch to two inches in diameter, being very distinct--but in other parts, the fracture exhibits the appearance of roundish nodules, composed of concentric shells--or bags as it were, of calcareous matter, which vary in colour, and are filled with a mixture of the same substance and quartzose sand: and the spaces between these nodules are likewise occupied by a similar compound.* (*Footnote.

The following description given by the French naturalists of the rocks at Bernier's Islands, was probably taken from a large suite of specimens; and M.Peron states (1 page 204) that it is strictly applicable to all the adjacent parts of the continent, and of the islands that were examined by the French voyagers: Le sable du rivage (de l'ile Bernier) est quartzeux, mele d'une grande proportion de debris calcaires fortement attenues.

La substance de l'ile meme se compose, dans ses couches inferieures, d'un gres calcaire coquillier, tantot blanchatre, tantot rougeatre, depose par couches horizontales, dont l'epaisseur varie de 2 a 8 decimetres (7 a 11 pouces) et qui toutes etant tres uniformes dans leur prolongement, pourroient offrir a la maconnerie des pierres de construction naturellement taillees.
Les coquilles incrustees dans ces massifs des roches sont presque toutes univalves; elles apartiennent plus particulierement au genre Natice de M.
de Lamarck, et ont les plus grands rapports avec l'espece de Natice qui se trouve vivante au pied de ces rochers.