o8) Tefra Incognita. [JUNE, 



with an overgrown mass called a brush : sometimes the brushes are within 

 two, three, or four miles of each other. Ten, fifteen, or twenty square miles 

 (though frequently much less than the lowest), will be completely grown 

 over with a countless multitude of iron or stringy bark saplings, which run 

 up to an immense height, but never grow large in the trunk. Among them 

 stand representations of almost every tree the forests afford : the shrub- 

 bier sorts, of meagre growth ; and from the ground springs a great variety 

 of vines, which weave the trees into an impenetrable mass impenetrable 

 by man or beast, except the kangaroo, which in the brush finds safe covert 

 from the hunter: the small brushes which, perhaps, cover only a small 

 valley, or the side of a hill are distinguished as scrubs : in them the large 

 forest kangaroo makes his home the smaller varieties range the jungled 

 brush. 



From the application of names that belong to trees on this side of the 

 world to those of New South Wales, it may be supposed that they are the 

 same ; but, so far from that being the case, I believe the fact to be. that not 

 a tree or shrub indigenous to Australia is to be found in the northern 

 hemisphere embracing part of the theory of an intelligent friend (E. A. 

 Kendall, Esq.) on the subject more generally, inasmuch as it corresponds 

 with the result of ray own observations. 



The cedar of New South Wales is. so called because its wood approxi- 

 mates in appearance the cedar of Europe ; the apple-tree bears no fruit, 

 and it is more like many trees than that whose name it usurps, though its 

 distant resemblance is the only reason for calling it so, yet its size being 

 certainly not less than, and much more like to the English oak, better 

 would have warranted the application of that name to it. The mahogany 

 is any thing but mahogany, and the oaks are any thing but oak suffice 

 it for this latter, that what in New South Wales is called forest-oak, is in 

 England known as Botany Bay beef-wood ! The tea-tree may or may not 

 be like the tea-tree of China but I know very well that its leaves are not 

 tea. The iron and stringy barks, and blue and red gums, are more cor- 

 rectly named, and involve no contradictions. 



The cortex of the iron bark is of a very dark brown colour, in uneven 

 and unequal ridges outside, set on an inner coat, which is close v hard, 

 and short-grained, and, by its texture altogether, well warrants the name 

 it bears : the timber is fibrous in the extreme, and almost imperishable, 

 and will prove invaluable for naval purposes, as a ball might pass through 

 a plank of it without throwing a splinter ; the greatest objection to it is, 

 perhaps, its great specific gravity : for bends, lower-masts, and the most 

 trusted beams, no timber can surpass it. The stringy bark is a mass of 

 fibres, which may be stripped off the whole length of the trunk a looser 

 coating of a dark bistre-colour gives it a rough shaggy appearance on the 

 outside : the timber is used for flooring boards, and in scantlings generally ; 

 but, except for the former purpose, it yields to the blue gum, which affords 

 the finest timber in the colony, and, with the cedar, which, being lighter and 

 softer, may be used for finishings, is sufficient of itself for every purpose of 

 architecture, civil and military : it may be cut of the largest size, and of the 

 greatest lengths that can possibly be required. I have seen the uncoppered 

 bottoms of vessels that had been built of it as sound., after fifteen years' 

 wear, as if they had not been built more than six months. The red gum 

 is useless, except for fuel for which purpose it is preferred to any other 

 timber in the Australian forests. These trees are so called from the gummy 

 or resinous mass that forms their core, and is, in the one speciqs, of a blue 



