EUCALYPTUS TREES. 89 
less unite here, sooner or later, to bring to bear the 
sum of their knowledge, earned by a life-long toil, for 
giving vitality to that information which is to enter 
guidingly into the ordinary purposes of life. Thus, 
the happiness and prosperity of our fellow-men should 
be enhanced and exalted, and one of the loftiest ob- 
jects of our striving after truths be fulfilled. 
But the unassuming worker, conscious how far his 
own honest intentions advanced beyond his best re- 
sults, may well exclaim with Moore, in his soft melo- 
dies : 
‘*Ah ! dreams too full of saddening truth, 
Those mansions o’er the main 
Are like the hopes I built in youth, 
AS sunny, and as vain!’’ 
Let us first take a glance at one of our innumerable 
forest glens. We see in the deep, rich detritus of 
rocks and fallen leaves, accumulated in past centu- 
ries some of the grandest features of the world’s veg- 
etation. Fern-trees* rise, at least exceptionally, to 
a height of eighty feet, higher, therefore, than any 
other parts of the globe, unless in Norfolk Island. 
Mammoth-Eucalypts abound, haying, in elevation, 
rivals only in the Californian Sequoia Wellingtonia ; 
we may, indeed, obtain, from one individual tree, 
planks enough to freight almost a ship of the tonnage 
of the Great Britain. Todea Ferns, now sought in 
trade, occur in these recesses, weighing, deprived of 
their fronds, almost a ton ; and, if the Xanthorrhceas 
do resemble, as popularly thought, our once spear- 
armed natives, then the Todea stems bear certainly 
as justly a resemblance to large black bears, as has 
been comically contended. The Fan Palms,+ though 
* Alsophila Australis, R. Br. 
t+ Corypha (Livistona) Australis, R. Br, 
6 
