160 THE VICTORIVN NATURALIST. 



though there were twenty-two wrecks recorded in the twenty 

 years previous to the erection of the lighthouses on the island, 

 not a single one has occurred since they were built. 



The enclosure around Currie is covered with a rich growth of 

 imported grasses and lucerne. The shore is very rocky, being 

 here composed of gneiss, which about 200 yards to the south 

 passes into granite. Facing the open sea is a large shingle 

 beach, or, rather, there are two such — one more inland, slightly 

 the higher and older, and another newer one. The former 

 stretches back for some thirty yards, and is now covered with a 

 growth of pig-face, grass, lucerne, wild geranium (Pelargonium 

 Australe), currant-bush, etc. The latter is about ten yards wide, 

 quite bare, and slopes very suddenly and steeply down into the 

 sea. It is composed wholly of rounded, water-worn fragments of 

 gneiss and granite, varying in length from four inches to a foot. In 

 some of the granitic rocks in this part of the coast the constituent 

 parts — homblende. mica, etc. — are very clearly marked. For at 

 least a mile and a half to two miles inland run high sand-hills, 

 frequently of a perfectly conical, sugar-loaf shape (one of the 

 highest has received the name of " Sugar-loaf"), covered with 

 coarse grass and the usual scrub. One of these hills, 150 to 200 

 feet in height, presents a most striking appearance. It has the 

 form of a truncated cone, its perfectly horizontal top being a 

 hundred yards or so in length. All the surface, save its southern 

 side, which slopes at a very sharp angle, is covered with grass, 

 etc., but this one face is perfectly bare, and the whole hill being 

 formed of dazzling white sand a most curious effect is produced 

 when the hill is seen standing out against a deep blue sky, and 

 with a foreground of dark-green foliage it resembles more than 

 anything else a snow-field. 



On the coast, some two miles south of Currie, is a small lime- 

 stone terrace ; a diminutive cliff, about four feet high and fifteen 

 yards long, has been formed in times past by deposition of lime 

 from the waters of a stream flowing over the granite into the 

 sea. Curiously, the stream still flows, but there is not the 

 slightest trace now of any deposit taking place, and the sea is 

 gradually wearing away the face of the little cliff. A litde further 

 on British Admiral Bay is reached, named after the ill-fated ship 

 which struck upon one of the dangerous sunken reefs which line 

 the shore some distance out to sea, and upon which, even on the 

 quietest days, the surf beats heavily. Wreckage, consisting of 

 hard lumps of teak, with cedar and pinewood, still strew the 

 rocks on the shore, and the graves of some of those who were 

 drowned are still to be seen, though fast falling into decay. They 

 would, in some cases, have already been lost were it not for the 

 thoughtfulness of the hunters. 



To the south of British Admiral Bay, on a projecting outcrop of 

 granite, which can be reached on foot at low tide, is a seagull 



