2l6 A NEW ZEALAND NATURALIST'S CALENDAR. 



of a principle for the sake of a few votes is that it is 

 saddled with an incubus for an indefinite time. 



Mount Cargill appears to be geologically very different 

 from Swampy Hill. Both the main peak and the lower 

 one to the north-east of it show the naked basalt project- 

 ing into precipitous cliffs, and the same formation occurs 

 on its slopes and on Pine Hill, and away to the eastward 

 again on Mihiwaha. But Swampy Hill must have been 

 submerged since the elevation of its main mass, for pretty 

 high up on its western slopes are beds of lignite and other 

 sedimentary deposits. Perhaps they have some connection 

 with the clay bed at Mornington already referred to. 



My first ascent of Mount Cargill was made through deep 

 bush, thick with crape and filmy ferns. The little bog 

 just under the cliffs at the summit was full of Alpines and 

 slender-leaved Astelias. My last ascent, more than twenty 

 years after, was throvigh fields covered with a poor growth 

 of Yorkshire fog and sorrel and roughly fenced with fallen 

 trees ; then up through broken muddy ground poached 

 deep by wandering cattle, which evidently, from the 

 number of their footprints, had to travel far for bare 

 sustenance among scattered remnants of scorched and 

 blasted skeletons of old trees ; and, finally, through a 

 patch of burnt scrub, from which we emerged black and 

 grimy to meet the smoke of a bush fire on the western side 

 of the mountain, and which was sweeping over its summit 

 in thick and hot puffs. We might well say "Ichabod," 

 for the glory had indeed departed. 



From the top of Mount Cargill to Signal Hill, and so 

 down to Black Jack's Point, we are once more on familiar 

 ground, but after a long day's walk one is not inclined 

 to pause and examine its features. I have generally found 

 that while everything is fresh and full of interest at the 

 commencement of a long walk, it takes something of very 

 special character to arouse any interest at the close of it. 

 Yet here is the same tale of disappearing vegetation and 

 its replacement by cosmopolitan weeds half-a-dozen 

 species of natives, which I could formerly gather on this 

 ridge, had now completely disappeared. 



