94 SILK COTTON-TREE. 



the soil on the Victoria is of too fertile a character 

 to bear any comparison with that of Coburg 

 Peninsula. 



At Reach Hopeless, and at other points of the 

 important stream I am describing we observed 

 numerous specimens of a kind of silk cotton-tree 

 (Bombax) : the diameter was sometimes as great as 

 twenty inches ; and it not unfrequently rose to the 

 height of twenty or thirty feet, though generally 

 shorter. The pods were of an oval shape, and 

 about two inches and a half in length ; each pod 

 was in three divisions and full of a silky cotton, 

 with the seeds not imbedded but held at the ex- 

 tremity of the fibres. I brought home a specimen 

 and presented it to Sir William Hooker, of the 

 Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, with whom 

 I have since had some correspondence on the 

 subject. He informs me that the plant is one 

 hitherto undescribed ; but that Sir Joseph Banks 

 met with it in Captain Cook's voyage. 



November 17- — We continued our descent of the 

 river : stopping from time to time to complete the 

 survey. In the end of Long Reach we noticed that 

 the stream ran up two hours after high water. 

 After securing some observations for latitude 

 under Station Peak in the early part of the night, 

 we proceeded further down the river, delighted 

 to escape from that musquito-haunted neighbour- 

 hood. 



November 18. — At day-break I was very much 



