MYRTLE AXD EUCALYPTUS. 79 



I have seen a labourer employed to split some of this 

 wood give up the task ; he said there is a tAvist in the 

 grain which prevents the wedge from acting. The 

 ash contains much potash, sometimes as much as 21 

 per cent. 



The leaves are of two different shapes ; the 

 younger ones being oblong, sessile, and coated with 

 wax : these have the stomata on the under side only, 

 as is usual. The later leaves are stalked, scimitar- 

 shaped, leathery, and hang with their edge to the sky, 

 so as to present the least possible surface to the sun : 

 these have the stomata on both sides, as in the case 

 of the leaf-like organs called " phyllodes." In fact 

 these long curved leaves have been mistaken for 

 phyllodes. 



How strange it is that through man's agency 

 these trees should be brought hither from that 

 changeless island, or rather, continent, beyond the 

 equator ! How many ages have rolled by since 

 that distant Jurassic period, when pouch-bearing 

 mammals fed in England beneath the shade of 

 Araucarias and Cycads ? Yet these long cycles count 

 not for the land of the Eucalyptus. New plants, 

 new animals, new forms of life have risen in Europe, 

 and have passed away : yet in Australia the 

 marsupials still linger. Xo otherwise it fares with 

 many a human mind ; new facts, new forms of 

 thought, have dawned upon the world ; in these they 

 have no part ; Progress has passed them by ; 

 primeval superstitions haunt their minds, strange 

 palaeozoic thoughts and theories long since decayed 

 and fossilised elsewhere, and well nigh lost to 

 memory. 



