Page:Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies.djvu/152

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116
EMU BAY.
[12th mo.
FIRST ACRE.
704 Trees under   12 inches in girth.
880 do. .. 1 to 2 feet do.
148 do. .. 2 to 3 do. do.
56 do. .. 3 to 6 do. do.
32 do. .. 6 to 12 do. do.
28 do. .. 12 to 21 do. do.
8 do. .. 21 30 do. do.
8 do. ..   30 feet and upwards
112 Tree Ferns.
———
1,976 Total.
———

22nd. We spent the day with a young man who had charge of the Emu Bay Stores.—In walking on a hill in the forest, we fell in with the trunk of a White Gum, nearly 100 feet long, and of such even circumference that it was not easy to determine which end had grown uppermost: it was rather the thickest in the middle. It had been broken off at about 15 feet from its base, and precipitated upon its top, which had been broken to shivers, and the trunk making a somerset, and shooting forward down the hill, had made a vista through the scrub.—In the forest here, we found a curious epiphyte of the orchis tribe, afterwards named Gunnia australis. Epiphytes are so called because they grow upon other trees, without becoming incorporated with them. This was growing upon the branches of the larger shrubs, especially upon Coprosma spinosa, which last has small, red and rather insipid berries, that are sometimes preserved, under the name of Native Currants.

In the neighbourhood of Emu Bay, there are rocks of felspar, or of quartz, of a reddish colour, and there are traces of granite in this vicinity, as well as at the Hampshire Hills, but the country is chiefly basaltic.—Sometimes, when large trees are blown over, they bring up portions of slender, basaltic columns with their roots. Much of the earth in the forests is rich, red, basaltic loam.

23rd. We assembled the assigned servants, to whom J. Milligan read a portion of Scripture, after which I