Port Lincoln.'] 
TERRA AUSTRALIA 
ceeding visitors, some hatchets and various other articles were left 
in their paths, or fastened to stumps of the trees which had been cut 
down near our watering pits. 
In expressing an opinion that these people have no means of 
passing the water, it must be understood to be a deduction from our 
having met with no canoe, or the remains of any about the port ; 
nor with any tree in the woods from which a sufficient size of bark 
had been taken to make one. Upon Boston Island, however, there 
were abundant marks of fire ; but they had the appearance, as at 
Thistle's Island, of having been caused by some conflagration of the 
woods several years before, rather than of being the small fire 
places of the natives. 
There are kanguroos on the main land but none were caught ; 
our efforts, both in hunting and fishing, were indeed very confined, 
and almost wholly unsuccessful. What has been said of the neck 
of land between the head of the port and Sleaford Mere may be 
taken as a description of the country in general : it is rocky and 
barren; but has a sufficient covering of grass, bushes, and small 
trees not to look desolate. The basis stone is granitic, with a super- 
stratum of calcareous rock, generally in loose pieces ; but in some 
parts, as at Boston Island, the granite is found at the surface or 
immediately under the soil. Behind the beach, near our watering 
pits, the calcareous stone was so imperfectly formed, that small 
shells and bits of coral might be picked out of it. This fact, with 
the saltness of Sleaford Mere and of a small lake on the south side 
of the port, accords with the coral found upon Bald Head and various 
other indications before mentioned, to show that this part, at least, 
of Terra Australis cannot have emerged very many centuries from 
the sea; the salt imbibed by the rocks having not yet been all 
washed away by the rains. In the mountains behind Port Jackson, 
on the East Coast, at a vastly superior elevation, salt is formed in 
some places by the exhalation of the water which drips from the 
grit-stone cliffs. 
