26 
SURVEY OF THE INTERTROPICAL 
1821. of course more plainly developed. The base is 
June 23. a coarse, granular^ siliceous sand-stone, in which 
large pebbled of quartz and jasper are imbedded: 
this stratum continues for sixteen to twenty feet 
above the water : for the next ten feet there is a 
horizontal stratum of black schistose rock, which 
was of so soft a consistence, that the weather had 
excavated several tiers of galleries ; upon the roof 
and sides of which some curious drawings were 
observed, which deserve to be particularly de- 
scribed: they were executed upon a ground of 
red ochre, (rubbed on the black schistus), and 
were delineated by dots of a white argillaceous 
earth, which had been worked up into a paste. 
They represented tolerable figures of sharks, 
porpoises, turtles, lizards (of which I saw se- 
veral small ones among the rocks,) trepang, star- 
fish, clubs, canoes, water-gourds, and some qua- 
drupeds, which were probably intended to repre- 
sent kangaroos and dogs. The figures, besides 
being outlined by the dots, were decorated all 
over with the same pigment in dotted transverse 
belts. Tracing a gallery round to windward, it 
brought me to a commodious cave, or recess, 
overhung by a portion of the schistus, sufficiently 
large to shelter twenty natives, whose recent 
fire-places appeared on the projecting area of 
the cave. 
