AGE AND MOTIVE OF DRAWINGS.

263

few drops of a brilliant blue liquid. I, therefore, imagined that it was procured from this

source.

With regard to the age of these paintings, we had no clue whatever to guide us. It is certain that they may have been very ancient, for although the colours were composed of such perishable materials, they were all mixed with a resinous gum, insoluble in water, and, no doubt, when thus prepared, they would be capable of resisting, for a long period, the usual atmospheric causes of decay. The painting which appeared to me to have been the longest executed was the one clothed in the long red dress, but I came to this conclusion solely from its state of decay and dilapidation, and these may possibly have misled me very much; but whatever may have been the age of these paintings, it is scarcely probable that they could have been executed by a self-taught savage. Their origin, therefore, I think, must still be open to conjecture.

But the art and skill with which some of the figures are drawn, and the great effect which has been produced by such simple means, renders it most probable that these paintings must have been executed with the intention of exercising an influence upon the fears and superstitious feelings of the ignorant and barbarous natives: for such a purpose they are, indeed, well calculated; and I think that an attentive examination of the arrangement of the figures we first discovered, more particularly of that one over the entrance of the cave,

264

SINGULARITY REGARDING THEM.

will tend considerably to bear out the conclusion I have here advanced.

It is a singularity worthy of remark, that the drawings we found in the vicinity of the coast, were nothing but the rudest scratches; that they gradually improved until we reached the farthest point we attained from the sea; and that it was in the vicinity of this point that some of the best productions were found.

CHAPTER XII.

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY-COMMERCIAL PROSPECTS.

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY-MOUNTAIN RANGES-RIVERS-VALLEYS-PRODUCTIONS SUITED FOR CULTIVATION-COMMER

CIAL PROSPECTS-TRADE WITH THE ASIATIC ARCHIPELAGO -METHOD OF BARTER-SUCCESS OF AMERICAN VESSELSTRADING PRODUCTS OF THE SEVERAL ISLANDS.

Physical Geography.-The most remarkable geographical feature in North-Western Australia, is a high range of mountains running N.N.E. and s.s. w., named by me Stephen's Range, after James Stephen, Esq. Under Secretary of State for the Colonies. From this primary range several branches are thrown off. 1st. One between Roe's River on the north, and Prince Regent's River on the south. 2nd. Macdonald's Range that throws off streams to Prince Regent's River on the north, and to Glenelg River on the south. 3rd. Whateley's Range, which gives forth streams to Glenelg River on the north, and to the low country behind Collier's Bay and Dampier's Land on the south.

These branch ranges, as well as the principal one, are all composed of ancient sandstone, deposited in nearly horizontal strata, or of basaltic rocks, which are only visible in certain places, and are

266

MOUNTAIN RANGES.

most fully developed in that part of Stephen's Range which lies behind Collier's Bay, and in the low ground near Glenelg River.

With the extent of Stephen's Range I am unacquainted; but I have no doubt that the high land, whence the Fitzroy River takes its rise, is merely an under-feature again thrown off from it, and which I propose to call Wickham's Range, after Captain Wickham, R.N. the discoverer of the Fitzroy.

We may form some idea of the limits of Stephen's Range, in a north and east direction, from the following passage extracted from Captain King's survey of these coasts:-*

"Lacrosse Island is situated in the entrance of a deep opening trending to the s.s.w. towards some steep, rugged hills. The character of the country is here entirely changed. Irregular ranges of detached rocky hills of sandstone formation, very slightly clothed with small shrubs, and rising abruptly from extensive plains of low, level land, seem to have superseded the low wooded coasts that almost uninterruptedly prevails between this and Cape Wessel, a distance of more than six hundred miles."

It appears, therefore, that this main range contains within it the sources of Roe's River, Prince Regent's and Glenelg Rivers, most probably the Fitzroy, and those that run into Cambridge Gulf, and perhaps others that have their embouchures between this last and Admiralty Gulf.

MACDONALD'S RANGE.

267

From an accident having occurred to the only barometer we could carry with us, I am unable to state the elevation of the highest land we reached above the level of the sea; but the appearance of the country on the coast does not give the impression of any very elevated ground existing near it. This, however, is owing to the great height of the shore cliffs, and the gradual rise of the land towards the interior. The following observations, made with the barometer before it was broken, will shew, however, that the altitude of the country, at no great distance from the coast, is considerable:

Our first encampment was on the banks of a small river, at a spot 2,640 feet from the sea. This river ran through a deep and narrow valley, descending with a nearly regular slope from a tableland of sandstone, in which it took its rise about seven miles inland. At this encampment the height of the bed of the river above the level of the sea, was 188.76 feet, as found by the mean of several very accordant observations, which, at the same average slope, gives an elevation of about 377 feet for the height of a spot on its banks distant only one mile from the sea; and if we conceive the average increase of elevation to the sand-stone table-land to be only 200 feet in every mile, (and I believe it to have been more,) we shall have 1,400 feet for the elevation of the table-land, which formed one of the highest parts of Macdonald's range.

After passing across this range, we again descended rapidly into the low country, the face of