270 BARREN ISLAND. 



rises abruptly from the water and forms a singular 

 sugar loaf 790 feet high. It is composed of granite, 

 boulders of which front many of the points, forming 

 strange figures. The whole of the island is clothed 

 with an almost impervious scrub, which growing 

 laterally forms a perfect net-work, so that it is 

 impossible to traverse it. Mr. Bynoe procured few 

 specimens of birds in consequence. The wood- 

 cutters one day cut a small brown opossum in half: 

 it seemed to be a very rare if not a new animal ; 

 but unfortunately the head part could not be found. 

 Small brown rats were very numerous, they had 

 rather short tails with long hind feet, and sat up 

 like kang^aroos. 



The trees on this island are small and stunted, 

 being chiefly Banksia and Eucalypti. Water is 

 plentiful. We supplied the ship from wells dug 

 on the north point of a sandy bay on the S.E. side 

 of the island.* Hunter Island well deserves its 

 former name of Barren, for it is perfectly treeless ; 

 a green kind of scrub overruns its surface, which 

 at its highest point is three hundred feet above the 

 level of the sea. In form it is like a closed hand 

 with the fore-finger extended, pointing north. The 

 inclination of its strata differs, dipping to the sea 

 on both sides, east and west. These at first sight 

 appeared to be of the same kind of sandstone that 



* The reef that so nearly sealed the Mermaid's fate with 

 Captain King, we found to lie half a mile north-west from the 

 north-east end of Three Hummock Island. 



