BY COL. W. V. LEGGE, E.A., F.G.S, 123 



is "broken up into bluffs and peaks forming a rugged wall to 

 the lonely valley of ttie Narcissus, whicli extends for 10 miles 

 or so from the head of the lake to the foot of the Du Cane 

 Eange. The western side of the valley is closed in by the peaks 

 of Mount Byron, Mount Ossa and a portion of the Du Cane 

 Eange, and about the centre of the Lake the lofty 

 crags of Olympus tower above the richly wooded slopes 

 which abut on its shores. The chief beauty of the lake lies 

 in the dark green foliage of the beech forest clothing its 

 western shore, but much of it cannot be seen from 

 the lower end, as under Olympus the water trends to 

 eastward and becomes hidden by the spur of the 

 mountain. The Olympus Range approaches the lake 

 from a north-easterly direction, and slopes abruptly 

 down into the beautiful Cuvier valley which terminates at 

 "Boat House" or Cynthia Bay, and down the centre of which 

 the Cuvier River, a pretty trout stream, flows after issuing 

 from Lake Petrarch at the upper end of the valley. On the 

 opposite side of the vale the heights of Mount Hugel, with a 

 number of smaller subsidiary hills, form a fitting vis-d-vis to 

 Olympus, and at the top beyond Petrarch and two smaller 

 lakes, Gould's Sugarloaf and the Coal Hill on the left-hand, 

 and the remarkable peak of Mount Byron on the right complete 

 the view. The beech forest is almost wholly confined to the 

 shores of the lake, for on leaving it to proceed up the vale 

 nothing but gum forest is met with; a few pines of the hand- 

 some Artlirotaxis seleginoides species are scattered here and 

 there in the bush on the south sides of Olympus, but they 

 are not noticeable until the forest is penetrated, and from 

 what I saw, do not exist in sufficient numbers for even a 

 limited timber supply. 



The summit of Mount Olympus is a wall-like formation of 

 basaltic greenstone, rising 2,300 feet above the lake and some- 

 what less from the Vale of Cuvier, which has a slight 

 elevation above the water. It has the shape of an irregular 

 figure of 8, as the flat rocky tract swells out at each end and 

 is contracted to a narrow ridge in the centre ; on the lake side 

 the formation is perpendicular, except at the narrow ridge, 

 which is a boulder-strewn slope, at the foot of which, nearly 

 1,000 feet below the summit, are two little mountain lakes ; 

 overlooking the Vale the sides are perpendicular at each end 

 of the plateau, the south-eastern aspect of which has a very 

 grand appearance, towering to a considerable height above the 

 wooded spurs which abut on the lake. Mr. Piguenit's 

 beautiful painting depicts this view. 



The ascent of the mountain may be made either from the 

 north-western shores of the lake, by way of the little mountain 

 lakes, or from the Vale of Cuvier, but the former 



