FLINTS. 
285 
below which was a hard concrete substance of sand 
or of reddish soil, mixed with shells and pebbles ; 
below this again, the principal portion of the cliff 
consisted of a very hard and coarse grey limestone, 
and under this a narrow belt of a whitish or cream- 
coloured substance, lying in horizontal strata ; but 
what this was we could not yet determine, being 
unable to get down to it any where. The cliffs were 
frightfully undermined in many places, enormous 
masses lay dissevered from the main land by deep 
fissures, and appearing to require but a touch to 
plunge them headlong into the abyss below. Back 
from the sea, the country was level, tolerably open, 
and covered with salsolm, or low, prickly shrubs, 
with here and there belts of the eucalyptus dumosa. 
In places two or three miles back from the coast 
there was a great deal of grass, that at a better 
season of the year would have been valuable ; now 
it was dry and sapless. No timber was visible any 
where, nor the slightest rise of any kind. The 
whole of this level region, elevated as it was above 
the sea, was completely coated over with small fresh 
water spiral shells, of two different kinds. 
After travelling about twenty-five miles along the 
cliffs, we came all at once to innumerable pieces of 
beautiful flint, lying on the surface, about two 
hundred yards inland. This was the place at which 
the natives had told us they procured the flint ; but 
how it attained so elevated a position, or by what 
means it became scattered over the surface in such 
