Using VB.net to read an entire Row at once from Excel

I am writing a VB.net 2008 project that needs to retrieve data from an Excel spreadsheet. As an example, let's say I need to retrieve the contents of 30 columns of the first 100 rows.

Using the following code works, but is very slow. I suspect it is because I am having to make 30 calls to retrive one row of data. Is it possible to retrieve an entire row of cell contents at once? Something like specifying a range "1-30" and having the cell contents returned as an array of some sort?

Or any suggestion on a  better, faster way to pull the data from Excel?

    Dim xlApp As Excel.Application = New Excel.Application
    Dim WithEvents xlBook As Excel.Workbook
    Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load
        Dim i as integer
        Dim j as integer
        Dim contents as object
        '----------------------------
        ' Connect to the Excel spreadsheet
        xlBook = xlApp.Workbooks.Open(Application.StartupPath & "\..\..\..\Data\obj_model_110311x.xls")
        xlBook.Application.Visible = True
        xlBook.Windows(1).Visible = True
        xlBook.Application.WindowState = Excel.XlWindowState.xlMinimized
        '----------------------------
        ' Pick the worksheet of interest
        Dim xlSheet As Excel.Worksheet = New Excel.Worksheet
        xlSheet = xlBook.Worksheets(4)
        '----------------------------
        ' Read the contents of the columns 1-30 for the first 100 rows
        for i = 1 to 100
            for j = 1 to 30
                contents = xlSheet.Cells(i,j).value
                '---- do something with the value ----
            next j
        next i
        '-----------------------------
        ' close the Excel app, etc, etc...
        '-----------------------------
    End Sub