474 



CHARLES DARWIN 



tame outline : to the south the broken land and water, form- 

 ing many intricate bays, was mapped with clearness before 

 us. After staying some hours on the summit, we found a 

 better way to descend, but did not reach the Beagle till eight 

 O'clock, after a severe day's work. 



February fth. — The Beagle sailed from Tasmania, and, 

 on the 6th of the ensuing month, reached King George's 

 Sound, situated close to the S. W. corner of Australia. We 

 stayed there eight days; and we did not during our voyage 

 pass a more dull and uninteresting time. The country, 

 viewed from an eminence, appears a woody plain, with here 

 and there rounded and partly bare hills of granite protrud- 

 ing. One day I went out with a party, in hopes of seeing a 

 kangaroo hunt, and walked over a good many miles of coun- 

 try. Everywhere we found the soil sandy, and very poor; 

 it supported either a coarse vegetation of thin, low brush- 

 wood and wiry grass, or a forest of stunted trees. The 

 scenery resembled that of the high sandstone platform of the 

 Blue Mountains; the Casuarina (a tree somewhat resem- 

 bling a Scotch fir) is, however, here in greater number, and 

 the Eucalyptus in rather less. In the open parts there were 

 many grass-trees,— a plant which, in appearance, has some 

 affinity with the palm ; but, instead of being surmounted by 

 a crown of noble fronds, it can boast merely of a tuft of 

 very coarse grass-like leaves. The general bright green col- 

 our of the brushwood and other plants, viewed from a dis- 

 tance, seemed to promise fertility. A single walk, however, 

 was enough to dispel such an illusion; and he who thinks 

 with me will never wish to walk again in so uninviting a 

 country. 



One day I accompanied Captain Fitz Roy to Bald Head ; 

 the place mentioned by so many navigators, where some im- 

 agined that they saw corals, and others that they saw petri- 

 fied trees, standing in the position in which they had grown. 

 According to our view, the beds have been formed by the 

 wind having heaped up fine sand, composed of minute round- 

 ed particles of shells and corals, during which process 

 branches and roots of trees, together with many land-shells, 

 became enclosed. The whole then became consolidated^ by 

 the percolation of calcareous matter; and the cylindrical 



