1 799-1 



OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 



463 



the iflandr The refult of his inquiries and conjectures amounted to 

 this : that as traces of the fea., and of the effe&s of running waters, 

 were plainly difcernible in many parts of the ifland, and more par- 

 ticularly in the vicinity of this depofit of chalk and granite, it feemed 

 highly probable, that it had been formed by two dreams of the tide ; 

 which, when the ifland was yet beneath the furface of the fea, having 

 fwept round a large lump of rocks, then met and formed an eddy, 

 where every fubflance would fall to the bottom. The lump of rocks 

 is now a rocky knoll, which runs tapering from the oppofite fide of 

 the ifland towards the chalk. On each fide of it is a gap, through 

 which the two ftreams appear to have paffed. 



The vegetation on the ifland feems brown and ftarved. It confifts 

 of a few flunted trees, with feveral patches of brum, clofe fet and al«* 

 mod impenetrable. 



A fmall fpot upon the eaft end of the ifland prefented a pheno- 

 menon which feemed not eafily explicable by any known laws of that 

 clafs of natural hiftory to which it alone was referable. 



Amidft a patch of naked land* upon one of the higheft parts of the 

 ifland, at not lefs than 100 feet above the level of the fea, within the 

 limits of a few hundred yards fquare, were lying fcattered about a 

 number of (hort broken branches of old dead trees, of from one to 

 three inches in diameter, and feemingly of a kind fimilar to the large 

 brufhwood. Amid thefe broken branches were feen flicking up feverai 

 white floney flumps, of fizes ranging between the above diameter, 

 and in height from a foot to a foot and a half. Their peculiar form, 

 together with a number of prongs of their own quality, projeaingin 

 different dire&ions from around their bafe, and entering the ground 

 in the manner of roots, prefented themfelves to the mind of an ob- 

 ferver with a linking refemblance to the flumps and roots of fmall 

 trees. Thefe were extremely brittle, many of them, when taken into 

 the hand, breaking with their own weight. 



On 



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