156 THE VICTORIAN NATUKALIST. 



rivulet to the broad river, such as Sea Elephant, are everywhere 

 met with ; and, as a general rule, the dark colour of their waters 

 give evidence of the nature of the land through which they 

 pass. Invariably they contain plenty of fish, especially the eel, 

 the native trout, the spotted trout, and near the mouth a species 

 of mullet. 



Near Lake Dobson, in a sheltered spot, is the home of the 

 hunter (Grave) who acted as our guide over the island: the little 

 homestead, with its small, cultivated enclosure and its garden 

 gay with old English flowers — sweet-william, lad's love, heart's- 

 ease, hollyhocks, and roses — looked like an oasis in the uncul- 

 tivated wilds of the island. 



North of Wickham lighthouse the coast-line is formed by 

 jagged outcrops of gneiss, and granite, and quartzite. The 

 hills inland, rising without any trace of sand-hills directly 

 from the shore, reach the height of from two to three hundred 

 feet, and are covered with coarse grass and trefoil, except within 

 the large enclosure around the lighthouse, where imported 

 grasses flourish. 



The lighthouse itself is placed on a cliff, its summit being 280 

 feet above sea-level. Both on this and on other occasions 

 the members of the party were made welcome and hospitably 

 entertained by the superintendent and Mrs. Garraway. 



On the summit of the cliff", which in the main consists of 

 hornblendie granite, lies a deposit of tertiary limestone, which 

 also appears to cap some of the hills in the neighbourhood, 

 thou^^h none is visible in sections on the sea-shore, which in this 

 part is formed simply of granite which frequently passes into 

 gneiss. In one part, about three miles south of Wickham, is an 

 outcrop of quartzite. 



About five miles to the east of Wickham was found, by one of 

 the botanists of the party, the composite plant Nablonium 

 ^alyceroides, growing in damp ground near to the coast — 

 interesting as being the only plant as yet known from King 

 Island which is not found on the mainland of Victoria, but 

 occurs in Tasmania. 



(2.) Western Parts of the Island. — Two miles to the 

 south of the Yellow Rock the sand-hills bordering the coast 

 cease, and are succeeded by a stretch of three-quarters of a mile 

 of low, swampy land, with small lagoons choked up with a 

 luxuriant growth of chara, the leaves and stem of which seem to 

 contain more than the usual amount of mineral deposit. Only 

 a low bank of sand, about a foot in height, and overgrown with 

 grass, separates the lagoons at high tide from the sea. 

 Numerous outcrops of granite occur, forming low rocks, com- 

 pletely covered at high tide, to which cling limpets, chitons, 

 haliotes, gastropods of various kinds (especially a species of 

 turbo), anemonies (only a deep red coloured variety, as far as 

 could be seen), and numerous sponges; with plenty of oligo- 



