£96 HISTORY OF 



Mr. Bass ascended a mountain in the West 

 three miles from the water, and so conspicuous 

 as to be seen from every part of the Derwent, 

 and was surprized to find it abound with tall 

 gum-tree timber remarkably straight. 



The shore on the East side of the river,, is 

 covered with a good soil, lightly wooded ; on 

 the West the country rises suddenly into 

 stoney hills so that it is not in general so good 

 as in other places; a few patches were observed 

 of eighty or one hundred acres of excellent 

 land. 



The strata of cliffs were broken and lay 

 sloping in different directions ; several pieces 

 of petrified wood, and lumps of stone were in- 

 veloped, or rather stuck into the matter of the 

 rock, which, although in colour much like a 

 yellow tinged clay, yet had the usual rough 

 porous surface peculiar to such substances ; here 

 as in other places, it was hard, but did not 

 scintillate with steel, and was divided by lines 

 of a still harder iron-tinged stone, into squares 

 and parallograms of yarious sizes. From one 

 of these intersecting lines, Mr. Bass took a 

 small lump of this ferruginous stone, that seemed 

 to have bubbled up, and to have hardened in 

 the form of an ill-shaped bunch of small grapes. 

 Some of the neighbouring cliffs, for several 

 yards were formed into basaltic columns. 



In crossing one of the heads between two 

 bays Mr. B. met with a deep hole in the ground 

 Which seemed to have been caused by the fal- 

 ling in of the earth. It extended about 



