Page:Handbook of Western Australia.djvu/46

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34
Western Australia.

which is about 35 miles from its source to its mouth in Wilson's inlet; this also receives the smaller streams of the Denmark on the West, and the Sleeman and Teutor on the East.

The Palinup and Kalgan are intermediate in character, for on their courses the granitic hills and forests die out; the Porongurup, extending in solitary grandeur to the East, and culminating 2145 feet above the sea, while between them the schistose peaks of the Stirling Range rise in rugged masses for 30 miles; Tolbrunup, near the centre, rising 3341 feet; Ellen's peak to the East, 3420 feet, and the highest points between the two 3640 feet above the sea, as recently estimated by Capt. Archdeacon. Across the lower course of the Palinup, a comparatively level plain extends to Doubtful Island Bay, formed by sandstone deposits on the granitic floor, which is apparent in the channels of the rivers, and has its surface partly covered with timber to the West, and numerous fresh water lakes, those to the East being marked by the belts of yeat and tea-trees which surround them. The Kalgan has its course of 75 miles round Porongurup Range, and falls into Oyster harbor, which opens into King George's Sound. It is, like the rivers to the West, a constantly flowing water, but the Palinup is, except in rare seasons of flood, marked only by occasional pools; it has its outlet after a course of about 100 miles, during which it receives only two small affluents from the North, in an estuary of about five miles in length, which lies in a very beautiful valley surrounded by lofty hills, but it is closed from the sea by a bank of sand.

The sandstone rocks are well developed on either side of the estuary of the Palinup, presenting steep escarpments to the sea of some 60 feet in height, but they