The specimens from Goulburn Islands consist of reddish sandstone, not to be distinguished from that which occurs beneath the coal formation in England.  On the west of these islands the coast is more broken, and the outline is irregular:  but the elevation is inconsiderable; the general height in Cobourg Peninsula not being above one hundred and fifty feet above the sea, and that of the hills not more than from three to four hundred feet.

On this part of the coast, several hills are remarkable for the flatness of their tops; and the general outline of many of the islands, as seen on the horizon, is very striking and peculiar.  Thus Mount Bedwell and Mount Roe, on the south of Cobourg Peninsula; Luxmoore Head, at the west end of Melville Island; the Barthelemy Hills, south of Cape Ford; Mount Goodwin, south of Port Keats; Mount Cockburn, and several of the hills adjacent to Cambridge Gulf, the names given to which during the progress of the survey sufficiently indicate their form, as House-roofed, Bastion, Flat-top, and Square-top Hills; Mount Casuarina, about forty miles north-west of Cambridge Gulf; a hill near Cape Voltaire; Steep-Head, Port Warrender; and several of the islands off that port, York Sound, and Prince Regent’s River; Cape Cuvier, about latitude 24 degrees; and, still further south, the whole of Moresby’s flat-topped Range, are all distinguished by their linear and nearly horizontal outlines:  and except in a few instances, as Mount Cockburn, Steep-Head, Mounts Trafalgar and Waterloo (which look more like hills of floetz-trap) they have very much the aspect of the summits in the coal formation.*

(Footnote.  Captain King, however, has informed me, that in some of these cases, the shape of the hill is really that of a roof, or hayrick; the transverse section being angular, and the horizontal top an edge.)

Sketch 1 of some of the islands off Admiralty Gulf (looking southward from the north-east end of Cassini Island, about latitude 13 degrees 50 minutes, East longitude 125 degrees 50 minutes) has some resemblance to one of the views in Peron’s Atlas (plate 6 figure 7):  and the outline of the Iles Forbin (plate 8 figure 5, of the same series) also exhibits remarkably the peculiar form represented in several of Captain King’s drawings (Sketch 2).

The red colour of the cliffs on the north-west and west coasts, is also an appearance which is frequently noticed on the sketches taken by Captain King and his officers.  This is conspicuous in the neighbourhood of Cape Croker; at Darch Island and Palm Bay; at Point Annesley and Point Coombe in Mountnorris Bay; in the land about Cape Van Diemen, and on the north-west of Bathurst Island.  The cliffs on Roe’s River (Prince Frederic’s Harbour) as might have been expected from the specimens, are described as of a reddish colour; Cape Leveque is of the same hue; and the northern limit of Shark’s Bay, Cape Cuvier of the French, latitude 24 degrees 13 minutes, which is like an enormous bastion, may be distinguished at a considerable distance by its full red colour.*