128 ITS PRODUCTIONS. 



country is flat, there is usually a narrow belt of 

 dense brush or jungle. In the valleys, one finds 

 what in the colony of New South Wales would be 

 termed open forest land, characterized by scattered 

 eucalypti and other trees, and a scanty covering- of 

 coarse sedg-e-like grass growing in tufts on a red' 

 clayey soil, covered with nodules of ironstone and 

 coarse quartzose sand. As characteristics of this 

 poor soil, the first objects to attract the attention 

 are the enormous pinnacled ant-hills of red clay 

 and sand, often with supporting buttresses. These 

 singular structures, which are sometimes twelve 

 feet in height, are of great strength and toughness 

 — on breaking off a piece, they appear to be 

 honeycombed inside, the numerous galleries being 

 then displayed. The ants themselves are of a pale 

 brown colour, a quarter of an inch in length. In 

 saihng along the coast, these ant-hills may be dis- 

 tinctly seen fi'om the distance of two or three mUes. 



The rock in the immediate neighbourhood of Cape 

 York is a porphyry with soft felspathic base, 

 containing numerous moderately sized crystals of 

 amber-coloured quartz, and a few larger ones of 

 flesh-coloured felspar. It often appears in large 

 tabular masses split horizontally and vertically into 

 blocks of all sizes. At times when the vertical 

 fissures predominate and run chiefly in one direction, 

 the porphyry assumes a slaty character, and large 

 thin masses may be detached. 



One of the most interesting features in the botanj^ 



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