Page:Handbook of Western Australia.djvu/56

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44
Western Australia.

steep rocky sides, stretch deep into the land. This coast will be found clearly detailed on the Admiralty chart, but is too intricate and broken for general description. The only portion of the interior at all known is the valley of the Glenelg, which was examined by both Grey and F. H. Gregory; and if it may be taken as typical of the rest, the future importance of this part of West Australia can hardly be over estimated.

The Glenelg has its sources in the sandstone precipices of Stephen Range, the limit of Grey and Lushington's explorations, to the South of the 16th parallel of South latitude, and has its final outlet to the sea in Doubtful Bay, some 35 miles to the West, under the same parallel; and the line between these points forms the chord of the irregular arc of the course of the river. After descending from the rocky gorges of the sandstone range it flows with a deep and rapid current for about 20 miles in a North-West direction, through a valley rich with the disintegrations of the basaltic hills which now bound its valley to the East, and from which descend numerous streams of fresh water, to the base of the hills of the same character, rising at the foot of the sandstone range which separates it from Prince Regent's River, from which, at this point, it is distant only about 13 miles. These ranges trend North-West and South-East, as do the inlets of the coast, showing a change here in the axis of elevation, and, in consequence, the valley widens to the North-West, so that its affluent, the Gardner, which drains this part of the valley, has an extent of 15 miles, and the northern portion is a net work of running waters. From its North-East angle, where it falls over rocks, the course of the Glenelg is Westerly at the base of Mounts Eyre, Sturt, and Lyell, basaltic peaks rising 700 feet above the plain, which is everywhere fertile