14 N.S.W. TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 



chromatic photography for pubhcation (Figure II), as it illustrates the artistic 

 delineation and colouring of those times. It is a faithful replica of the original, 

 the colours of which have remained fast, although painted in 1793, well over 100 

 years ago, and these colours have been a source of admiration to many author- 

 ities in Sydney on chromatic work. But what is of still greater value as a 

 record is that the colours are true to life ; nor has the botanical draftsmanship 

 of those days fallen short in any details of morphological outline, for these are 

 quite accurate, and equal to any depicting of this genus since that period. 

 Moreover, this illustration will be invaluable to scientific generations of the 

 future, who are thus provided with a figure portraying correctly the systematic 

 features in 1793 of the largest flowering Waratah, and also will thus be able 

 to note what (if any) changes have taken place during different periods of time. 

 So here will be a gem for the evolutionist, mutationist, or the behever in 

 constancy of species. 



The letterpress accompanying this beautiful drawing is particularly inter- 

 esting, for it commences with these words : — 



THE moft magnificent plant which the prolific foil 

 of New Holland affords is, by common confent both 

 of Europeans and Natives, the Waratah. It is more- 

 over a favourite with the latter, upon account of a rich 

 honeyed juice which they Tip from its flowers. Our 

 figure was taken from a coloured drawing made from 

 the wild plant, compared with very fine dried fpecimens 

 fent by Mr. White. Only one garden in Earope, we 

 believe, can boaft the pofTefTion of this rarity, that of the 

 Dowager Lady de Clifford, at Nyn Hall, near Barnet, 

 who received living plants from Sidney Cove, which 

 have not yet flowered. The feeds brought to this 

 country have never vegetated. 



Fig. 2. 



So that, whatever divergences of opinion may have existed on things in 

 general in the minds of the white settlers and the black inhabitants of those early 

 days, there was at least one consensus of opinion betwean them, and that an 

 artistic one, viz., their aesthetic estimate of the Warat?h. No one has ever yet 

 produced a work on the artistic side of our aborigines, because it has been generally 

 accepted that they possessed little (if any) such pleasing character as aesthet- 

 icism in their whole nature. Here at least is one instance of its occurrence that 

 may perhaps have been overlooked. -" 



The plant, which is known by this name, was, of course, found in those days 

 around Sydney, but it has since been discovered to have a much wider geograph- 

 ical distribution, for it occurs in the coast district from the Clyde River to the 



