101 



vill give a fair sample of a piner's employment. He liad three 

 others as partners ; aucl I find that his time was occupied on 

 an average of these four years as follows: — 100 days each year 

 up the river felling timber and clearing down ; 135 days at 

 work at home, catching logs, squaring or sawing them, raft- 

 ing and loading vessels, repairing boats, vessels, huts, pens, 

 etc., gardening, and building vessels ; 55 days hunting, fishing, 

 and getting mutton-birds ; 55 days visiting Hobart Town, 

 including voyage and detentions; and 20 days unemployed, 

 being Sundays, holidays, or bad weather. They built two 

 vessels during these years, one of which was lost in Eecherche 

 Bay on its way to town to be sold. In the season ending 

 June, 18U 1, they got pine logs to the extent of 58,336 feet, 

 the quantities varying each week owing to track or creek 

 clearing and other causes. During the week ending 5th March 

 they got 4,509 feet ; that ending 7th May 7,203 feet; that 

 ending 21st June 2,234 feet. In another week they got as 

 much as 9,4 iO feet. The size of the trees recorded also varies 

 nuich. Logs 10 or 11 feet in girth were counted large; 

 this would represent trees over 4 feet in diameter at the butt. 

 The average seem to be 6 or 7 feet in girth. It is matter for 

 consideration whether the supply of timber should be 

 preserved, and the destruction of the beds prevented, by 

 prohibiting the cutting of any trees under a certain size. 



Many of the smaller trees in these forests would make good 

 cabinet woods if there was any demand. The pinkwood 

 (Euerypliia Billardierii) is hard, and has a fine colour. Like 

 hickory and horizontal, the green logs make better camp fires 

 than most of the dead timber that can be got in the dank 

 forests where they grow. The hickory (Phehalium Billardierii, 

 alias Eriostemon squmnea) should also be a valuable wood. It 

 is the only timber except the pine which is perfectly sound 

 and dry inside after being submerged for years in muddy 

 deposits, nearly all others being more or less rotten and dis- 

 eoloured. It is pale yellow in colour, and very tough. The 

 ordinary size of both these is about 15 inches in diameter, with 

 straight barrels 40 or 50 feet in height. They are common 

 in all the western forests, and are abundant about Mounts 

 Bischoff and Rumsay, and round Lake St. Clair. 



Close to Observatory Point is Pebbly Beach, and on this, 

 ever since Doherty remembers, lumps of coal are washed up 

 after strong southerly weather, though no indications of coal- 

 seams have been discovered on shore. Sandstone was reported 

 to me as found up the Crossing River. Samples of both, with 

 full information as to the dip and direction of the latter, have 

 been promised me, and I will lay them before the Royal Society 

 when I get them. Limestone occurs in the Davey Valley, 



