OF LA PEROUSE.. JQ9 



I landed on the beach, from which they had juft 

 difappeared, and I found there a great number of 

 fiones of a very beautiful granite, extremely hard, 

 and rounded by attrition. 



There lay on the beach four catamarans, made 

 of the bark of trees in the form of that which 

 may be feen Plate XLIV. Fig. I. Skiffs of this 

 fort can ferve only in a fea Scarcely ruffled, other- 

 wife the waves would foon knock them to pieces. 

 As thefe favages know how to hollow out the. 

 trunks of trees by means of fire, in order to make 

 of them a temporary abode, they fhould employ 

 the fame method to form canoes ; but they are as 

 little advanced in navigation, as in the other arts. 



I had now reached the outlet of the Strait, 

 where I remarked fome very beautiful cryftals of 

 felfpar fcattered here and there in feveral rocks of 

 very hard fand-ftone. 



On the top of thefe hills I met with the plant 

 which Phillip, in his Voyage to Botany Bay, has 

 delignated by the name of the yellow gum-tree. It 

 was only in feed, as Phillip found it; io that I 

 was alfo deprived of the characters indifpenfable 

 for determining this genus, which has the port of 

 a dracana. The feeds, placed on a long fpike, 

 were filled with a great number of larvae, which 

 transformed themfelves into little phalaiue of the 

 feclion of the tinea. 



The refinous gum which exudes from this 

 o 4 plant 



