A correspondence relating to the discovery of gold in Australia.

  • Earl, George Windsor.
Date:
1853
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A correspondence relating to the discovery of gold in Australia. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    in Western Australia, as one of the objects of my first visit to the Indian Archipelago in 1832-33, and 34 was to ascertain whethei the uniformity in the direction of the coast ranges I had observed in Western Australia was continued in the Indian Archipelago ; which I was led to believe would be the case from the form given to Sumatra and the Malayan and Indo-Chinese Peninsulas in the published maps. Through the kind assistance of the late Sir Jose d’Almeida and other residents of Singapore, I was enabled to trace the primary mountain ranges of South-Eastern Asia into the island of Borneo; but finding it impossible, with my small means, to organize a party of sufficient force to prosecute researches farther to the eastward, I returned to England in 1835 with the view of obtaining assistance. In this I was not disappointed, for although these eastern countries were then less generally interesting than they are at present, I met with the greatest encouragement from influential members of the Asiatic and Geographical Societies, which led to my being appointed to the North Australian Expedition of 1838. The paper in which I drew attention to the importance of the mountain ranges as illustrating the Physical Geography of those countries was read before the Asiatic Society on the 4th of February 1837, and is published in the Journal of the Society for that year.* My views * Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, No. VII., pp. 174 et seq., in which will be found the following passage. “ With the exception of the “ mountains in Java, and in the islands to the eastward of it, which are “ of volcanic origin, all the ranges yet discovered in the western parts of ,l the Indian Archipelago, and in the intertropical parts of Eastern Asia, “ extend from north-west to south-east; and as the hills on the west and “ north-west coasts, and perhaps also those in the interior of the island “ (Borneo), are of the same formation (primitive granite), it appears improbable that they should take another direction. “ One of the Eastern Asiatic ranges, after extending along the S.W. “ coast of Sumatra, terminates at its S.E. point. Another runs along “ the Malay Peninsula, is lost for a time, but appears again in the high peak of Lingin, and terminates in Banca and Billiton; and a branch “ from this separates at Pulo Timoan, on the east coast of the Peninsula, “ and edds at Carimata, in the strait between Billiton and Borneo. Two “ ranges traverse Cambodia and Cochin-China in the same direction, and “ these will be found to extend to, and, perhaps, to traverse Borneo. “ Between the Cambodian range and the mountains at Serawak, on the ‘‘ north-west extremitv of Borneo, the Natunas islands and Pulo Condor “ form the connecting link; and as the Serawak hills run to the south- “ east, the range is probably continued, either by a connected line or by *' isolated mounts, until it terminates in the Gunung Ratos, near “ Cape Selatan. *' All these ranges abound in metals, which is not the case in Java, ‘‘ where the mountains take another direction.”