568 
PROCEEDINGS OE SECTION E. 
hard, thorny scrubs, and loose, flat stones, rendering walking up or 
down (but especially down) both difficult and dangerous. Towards 
the base a great deal of ironstone shingle and gravel and nodules of 
quartz are mixed with the sand and loose stones. Here flourish 
four different kinds of poison shrub, also a dwarf eucalypt, with 
enormous leaves and a gorgeous red flower. In the valley surrounding 
the hill are several yate swamps, or flats — as they rarely contain 
water— in which grass, as usual, is found. Below Price’s Spring there 
is a nice patch of grass, with Casuarina , peaches, wattles, and, in the 
gorge, willows growing ; otherwise Mount Rugged is surrounded by 
qvowchen , on which grows Mount Rugged poison, somewhat 
resembling a heartleaf poison shrub ( Gastrolobium bilobum ). It also 
occurs on the Phillips River. Separated by a valley from Mount 
Rugged, and slightly more inclined to the east, is Mount Russell. I 
do not know its height, but estimate it to be about 1,500 feet. On the 
south-east side is water, and below a patch of she-oaks, grass, &c. 
The Mount Dean hills run north-east also, commencing nearly six 
miles south of the eastern termination of Mount Russell, and are 
about ten miles long. The chief hill (Mount Dean) is about as high 
as Mount Russell, with a corresponding patch of grass, she-oaks, 
water, &c., ever on the south-east side. There are four other conical 
points of lesser height on this range. The foregoing description of 
Mount Rugged serves equally for the other hills, so I need not repeat 
it. When seen from a ship’s deck, they appear as one range ; hut 
they run as I have described. 
Mount Rugged is situaled 25 miles west-north-west from 
Israelite Bay, and about the same distance from Balbinia. Bearing 
about ten degrees west of south, the highest hills ot Mount Russell 
hear north-west from Israelite, and the highest point of Mount 
Dean about north-west by north. A south line from Balbinia — 
which is in lat. 33° 4' 4]/' S. — runs about equidistant from 
Mount Russell and Mount Dean. The highest peak of Mount 
Rugged, above Price’s Spring' — the north-east knob is the same height, 
within a foot or two — marks an angle in the division line between the 
Euela and the Central districts, the boundary line running hence north 
and west, so that from some caprice a 20,000-acre block costs the 
unhappy settler twice as much on one side of these lines as on the 
other, while the land itself is equally poverty-stricken. To the wearied 
and perspiring pioneer, who has arduously toiled on hands and feet to 
attain the summit of Mount Rugged — anticipating a view of broad, 
rolling plains of bright, waving, yellow grass, studded with clumps and 
ridges of the brilliant, darlc-green (so-called) 8. A. sandalwood, or the 
bluish white of salt-bush plains — the endless panorama which meets 
his gaze is a cruel disappointment, so dreary, cheerless, and solitary is 
the dark funereal hue of the immense undulating sea of Eucalyptus 
and Melaleuca , melting away in the distance to a smoky blue on the one 
hand, and the desolate grey oE the vast quowcken , bounded by the ocean 
line, on the other ; and the survey produces a feeling of horror and 
loathing. Yet, when impartially viewed, the scene is neither devoid oE 
interest nor of beauty. Away there on the coastline are the white hills 
of the Israelite Sandpatch, showing clearly against the deep blue of the 
sea beyond and the snowy white of the breakers as they dash against 
the rocks and isles of the archipelago, slowly rising and subsiding, as 
