Discussi02f. 229 



Discussioi^. 



Mr. Chaeles Mooee (Director of the Botanic Gardens) said 

 thej were much, indebted to their Vice-President for this elaborate 

 paper. It was a subject on which he (Mr. Moore) had thought 

 a good deal. There were difficulties in the way of a general 

 conclusion, so far as Australia was concerned, which he could not 

 get over. He had been a resident in this Colony for nearly thirty 

 years, and knew the vegetation of it better perhaps than any 

 other living man. He had known about Wollongong what he 

 might call a "jungle vegetation" — a vegetation with dense under- 

 growth, producing palms and tree ferns of enormous size. That 

 extended from about 60 or 70 miles south to the extreme north ; 

 and vras generally produced on the Coast Eange. That was the 

 kind of vegetation spoken of as inducing moisture and holding 

 moisture. 



But the whole of that vegetation had been nearly destroyed. 

 The patch I^fr. Clarke referred to at "Wollongong was very 

 beautiful. Three years ago, he (Mr. Moore) made notes of every 

 plant there. 



It was a notorious fact that the dense vegetation of this 

 country had been almost wholly destroyed. In addition to the 

 effects of ring-barking and other known causes, whole tracts had 

 been destroyed without any apparent cause ; perhaps from a root 

 disease. It would follow from this, on Mr. Clarke's theory, that 

 the climate must have become drier. But he (Mr. Moore) 

 ventured to say the climate had not become drier. There was 

 no apparent effect, except that where rivulets were formerly 

 almost continually running they were dried up. The large rivers 

 had not been affected. He spoke of "Wingecarribbee. There, 

 fourteen years ago, all the rivulets were running ; a few years 

 ago all these rivulets were dry. So with Illawarra. A few years 

 ago nothing in the world was more beautiful than the forest 

 vegetation and rivulets of Illawarra : now many of the rivulets 

 were dry. 



Now the main rivers of the Colony contain as much water as 

 at any time within our knowledge. They did not find that where 

 they destroyed forests they created deserts. They had grass ; 

 and that presented almost as great a surface to catch moisture 

 as the trees did. With regard to stories about trees producing 

 water, he thought they were fictitious. There was, indeed, a 

 night-breathing or perspiration of plants. But about trees 

 " weeping" he had much doubt. His predecessor, when lost for 

 three weeks, between Moreton Bay and Gayndah, kept himself 

 alive by sucking the moss of a climber. The pitcher-plant 

 contains water, but that is distilled. 



