14 CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



Pass through the Low ArchipeUigo — Tahiti — Aspect— Veg-etation on the 

 mountains — View of Eimeo — ICxcursion into the interior — Profound 

 ravines — Succession of w'atei falls —Nun^ber of wild iisetui plants — 

 Temperance of the inluibitants— Their moral state — Parliament con- 

 vened—New Zealand— Bay of Islands — Hippahs — Excursion to Waimate 

 — Missionary establishment — English weeds now run wild — Waiomio 

 — Funeral of a New Zealand woman — Sail for Australia .... 



CHAPTER XIX. 



Sydney — Excursion to Kathurst — Aspect of the woods — Party of natives — 

 Gradual extinction of the aborigines — Infection generated by associated 

 men in health — Blue Mountains — View of the grand gulf-like valleys — 

 Their origin and formation — Bathurst, general civility of the lower orders 

 — State of society — Van Diemen's Land — Hobart Town — Aborigines all 

 banished — Mount Wellington — King George's Sound — Cheerless aspect 

 of the country — Bald Head, calcareous casts of branches of trees — Party 

 of natives — Leave Australia 424 



CHAPTER XX. 



Keeling Island — Singular appearance — Scanty flora — Transport of seeds — 

 Birds and insects— Ebbing and flowing springs — Fields of dead coral 

 — Stones transported in the roots of trees— Great crab — Stinging corals — 

 Coral-eating fish — Coral formations — Lagoon islands or atolls— Depth at 

 which reef-building corals can live — Vast areas interspersed with low 

 coral islands — Subsidence of their foundations — Barrier reefs— Fringing 

 reefs — Conversion of fringing reefs into barrier reefs, and into atolls — 

 Evidence of changes in level— Breaches in barrier reefs — Maldiva atolls ; 

 their peculiar structure — Dead and submerged reefs — Areas of subsidence 

 and elevation — Distribution of volcanoes — Subsidence slow, and vast in 

 amount 444 



CHAPTER XXL. 



Mauritius, beautiful appearance of— Great crateriform ring of mountains-^ 

 Hindoos — St. Helena— History of the changes in the vegetation — Cause 

 of the extinction of land-shells — Ascension — Variation in the imported 

 rats — Volcanic bombs — Beds of infusoria — Bahia — Brazil — Splendour of 

 tropical scenery — Pemambuco — Singular reef — Slavery — Return to 

 England — Retrospect on our voyage 474 



