174 
numberless species, and a few of that of Microcarpus, or native box, 
are mostly used for fencing. 
“No reasonable doubt, however, can be entertained, that other 
parts of the province are more productive than this seems to be of 
valuable timber; and as the Colonial Botanist has had the requisite 
facilities at his disposal for ascertaining this fact during his extensive 
excursions, he will doubtless have succeeded far better than myself 
in developing the economical properties of the Victoria timber trees. 
“During the last year I have made various attempts and experi- 
ments to discover the principles of variation amongst the Cassuarine, 
vulgarly called he and she oaks, but which in reality are the true 
pines of Australia. It was only in June last, however, that this dis- 
covery was effected, and the conviction then arrived at that all the 
descriptions now existing were perfectly and essentially defective, and 
therefore quite useless ; and that this and the genus Exocarpus are 
the most extraordinary groups of trees yet discovered in Australia. 
Without being further tedious (as I intend to bring this discovery 
before the public in another shape), I shall merely state to your 
Excellency, that the facts I am prepared to bring forward will esta- 
blish the following propositions :— 
“1. That the Australian pines belong more to a very remote or 
primeval Flora than to the present. 
“2. That they are slowly, but surely, disappearing from the face of 
the earth, and giving place to that comparatively recent order of vege- 
tables which springs up in their stead. In this respect they offer a 
wonderful analogy to what we have ourselves witnessed in regard to 
the aboriginal tribes of Australia now giving place to those of the 
Caucasian race. 
“Now, of this remarkable tribe I have succeeded in determining 
more than two hundred species, all still growing within a very short 
distance of this place, besides having met with several others in diffe- 
rent stages of decay, but which, from their bark and other indications, 
convince me were different from all those I have met with in a growing 
state. They have, in fact, died from excessive age, and have left no 
SUCCESSOTS. 
“In the accompanying paper is a list of all the species found by 
me up to the end of the last month, and an abundance of cones of 
nearly all these have been collected and sent to the curator of the 
Botanic Garden. These your Excellency may now cause to be dis- 
tributed and made known over the whole civilized world: and thus 
the Botanical Garden would probably receive from those established 
: 
: 
_— ee OO ee 
