THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 23 
one, when you drive half-way up, and find a carriage waiting for you 
when you have come half-way back again. But it was a severe 
excursion in Darwin’s time. He failed indeed in his first attempt, 
and only succeeded after much hard work in his second, for “the 
guide, a stupid fellow, conducted us to the southern and damp side 
of the mountain.” ‘The ascent on this side would be a big climb 
even to-day. He says nothing of the brilliant flowers or of the 
brightly-colored berries which at this time of year so abound on 
Mount Wellington, He has no word for the Organ-Pipes or the 
Ploughed Fields, really magnificient examples of Basaltic bedding 
and Basaltic weathering. At the very summit, he says again, the 
elevation is 3100 feet above sea level, whereas it reaches rather more 
than another thousand feet, #.¢., is about as high and as prominent as 
Vesuvius. He is indeed constrained to admit that ‘in many parts 
the Kucalypti composed a noble forest.” But the fronds of the 
tree-ferns, though elegant, “ produced a gloomy shade.” 
In noticing the Sandy Point travertin with fossil leaf 
impressions and land-shells, he makes a generalisation which, as 
uncalled for and refuted by facts since collected, calls for remark. 
He says, “It is not improbable that this one small quarry includes 
the only remaining record of the vegetation of Van Diemen’s Land 
during some former epoch.” ‘Tasmania was notoriously unexplored 
—nay is so at the present time to an extent one does not realize 
till one tries to work away from the alienated lands. However, 
already tertiary plant beds of similar age have been discovered by 
Mr. R. M. Johnston, at three places in the Tamar Basin, N. Esk, 
Stevenson's Bend and Breadalbane, and probably also by Mr. 
Charles Gould, at Macquarie Harbour. 
The last point of our continent Darwin touched at was King 
George’s Sound; “ we stayed there eight days,” he writes, “ and did 
' not during our yoyage pass a more dull and uninteresting time.’’ 
Not even the corroboree of the White Cockatoo tribe could remove 
the ennui. He scoffs at the grasg trees, which are surely to a 
naturalist most curious varieties of the lily type, and which do not 
in any way affect to rival the palms with which they are of course 
ignominiously compared. Singularly enough, an old pupil of mine, 
also a young student from Christ's College with a Cambridge 
training in natural science, who on coming out made a stay at 
Albany, was much struck by the abundance of marine forms, sponges, 
&c., strewn upon the coast. 
The chapter closes with this formal adieu, ‘‘ Farewell, Australia! 
you are a rising child, and doubtless some day will reign a great 
princess in the South; but you are too great and too ambitious for 
affection, yet not great enough for respect. I leave your shores 
without sorrow or regret.” 
To Australian naturalists all this must be extremely disappointing. 
