are separated from the rest
by an interval of four miles. I landed upon the two largest (1 and 3 of
the charts) on the first only once. I there found nothing of much
interest, except some very thick beds of conglomerate superimposed upon a
compact basaltic-looking rock. Number 3, on the other hand, consists of
mica slate, much contorted, and altered from its usual appearance, and
containing lead ore (galena) with several veins of quartz, one of which,
about two feet in thickness, traverses the island from side to side.

BOTANY OF THE BARNARD ISLES.

The islands of the North-East coast of Australia hitherto and
subsequently visited during the survey, afford all the gradations between
the simplest form of a sandbank upon a coral reef scantily covered with
grass, a few creeping plants and stunted bushes on one hand--and on the
other a high, rocky, well-wooded island with an undulating succession of
hills and valleys. In those of the latter class, to a certain extent only
in the islands of Rockingham Bay, but in a very striking degree in those
to the northward, there is so great a similarity in the vegetation, that
an illustration of the botany may be taken from one of the Barnard Isles,
Number 3--exhibiting what may be termed an Indo-Australian Flora.

The upper margin of the coral beach is overrun with Ipomoea maritima, a
large purple-flowered Bossiaea, and some other leguminous plants, of
which the handsomest is Canvallia baueriana, a runner with large
rose-coloured flowers. To these succeeds a row of bushes of Scaevola
koenigii, and Tournefortia argentea, with an occasional Guettarda
speciosa, or Morinda citrifolia, backed by thickets of Paritium
tiliaceum, and other shrubs supporting large Convolvulaceae, vine-like
species of Cissus; Guilandina bonduc, a prickly Caesalpinia, Deeringia
coelosioides, and a variety of other climbers. Penetrating this shrubby
border, one finds himself in what in New South Wales would be called a
brush or scrub, and in India a jungle, extending over the greater part of
the island. Overhead are trees of moderate size, whose general character
is constituted by a nearly straight stem, seldom branching except near
the top, and furnished with glossy dark-green leaves. Interspersed with
them there are many which attain an enormous size, as in the case of a
Hernanda, a Castanospermum, two fabaceous trees, and others of which
neither flowers nor fruit were observed. Two palms, Seaforthia elegans,