BERBIMA AND MITTAGONG. 115 



of examining in a living state many plants quite new to me, and 

 of noticing some of the results of "free selection." It has long 

 appeared to me a most desirable object to place industrious 

 families on small farms, and I cannot but hope that the experi- 

 ment now being tried on the Mittagong Eange, may turn out 

 favourably. I am not called upon in any way to speculate on 

 social and political difficulties, that may arise from affording 

 facilities for the occupation of remote lands, in which from the 

 want of proper communication with the nearest towns, the settlers 

 may be exposed to hardship from inability to dispose of their 

 super-abundant produce. Nor need I dwell too much upon the 

 establishment of people in a remote district, where according to 

 the ideas of some persons, a population must grow up without 

 moral and religious influences. I prefer to view things as they 

 are. Possessing a healthy and bracing climate calculated to de- 

 velop the physical energies of the people, and favoured with a 

 soil which seems adapted for the raising of agricultural produce, 

 as well as the cultivation of many European fruits and grasses, I 

 can scarcely wonder that some of the settlers are already looking 

 forward to a time when their industry will be rewarded. As we 

 have seen, from a brief glance at the timber of the district, the 

 settlers are surrounded by dense and beautiful woods, which, as 

 the country is opened and facilities are afforded for better means 

 of communication, may become really valuable, not merely from the 

 practical uses to which many of the trees may be devoted, but also 

 from the different kinds of oil which may be extracted from their 

 leaves a subject far too extensive to be discussed in the present 

 paper, as may be seen by reference to the catalogue of the Victo- 

 rian Exhibition for 1861. Amongst the woods submitted for exam- 

 ination, it is somewhat remarkable that the specific gravity of our 

 common woolly-but is 1 '187, which seems rather high when com- 

 pared with the other woods, for none of the gums, with the ex- 

 ception of the ironbark and box, stand nearly so high. It seems 

 to me that the specimens of this wood which were procured from 

 Gippsland, must be of a closer grain than ours, or else that the 

 result of steam drying to which this gum was subjected, has given 

 it a comparative increase of gravity. The leaves from which the 

 essential oil was extracted were forwarded by me from Parramatta 

 and this oil exhibits the remarkable property of imparting an in- 



