that river. This great gulf is divided at its Southern extremity into two large bays or sounds by Peron Peninsula, extending 70 miles to Cape Peron. The Eastern is again divided into two parts by Point Petit and Faure island. Durham Sound, on the West, is broken into several deep inlets, and terminates in Freycinet harbor. Sharks Bay is covered to the West by Dirk Hartog's island, about 70 miles in length by six in breadth, to the North of which Doore and Bernier islands, with their connecting reefs, extend 50 more. The Naturaliste channel, between Dirk Hartog and Bernier islands, is 15 miles broad, and the Geographe Channel, to the North, 50. There can be no doubt that this must become hereafter an important naval station. Dirk Hartog's island has been long occupied as a sheep station by Mr. F. von Bibra. These islands are all rocky. Dirk Hartog's rises 435 feet above the sea at the Northern extremity.
From the Murchison a barren sandstone plain extends to the coast near the mouth of the Ashburton, broken only by the lower course of the Gascoigne, and supposed to be waterless. With the valley of the Ashburton the pastoral district of the North-West coast commences, and extends for 300 miles to the DeGrey. Throughout this district from Exmouth Gulf the coast is generally low and covered with mangroves, while to the West it is bold and rocky, yet granitic rocks appear in many places. The principal rivers—the Ashburton, Fortescue, and DeGrey—have their sources among the granitic ranges of the interior, and their middle in the sandstone ranges which flank them, and from which the surface descends gradually to the sea, and below which the inferior rivers—the Cane, Robe, Maitland, Harding, and Yule—have their, rise. F. H. Gregory describes three
