is still called Cape Inscription, though the object is removed that conferred the name upon it. As far as I can ascertain, the first English mariner, who appeared off the coast of Australia, was Dampier, formerly a buccaneer or sea-robber, who was deputed by the British Government to conduct a voyage of discovery to the South Seas, in the reign of William III., and who gave his name to a cluster of little islands off the coast. Some way south of these islands is Shark's Bay, which does not seem to have received its descriptive name without good reason. In this bay Dampier caught a shark, that measured eleven feet in length, "with a maw1 like a leather sack, very thick, and so tough that a sharp knife could scarce cut it." After this many Frenchmen visited Australia, among others the Captain Baudin who carried off Dirk Hartog's inscription, and some of them appear to have been under the impression that a navigator's first duty lay in the invention of a fresh set of names for other people's discoveries, but they did not lay claim to any part of the country. "Life in W. Australia," by MRS MILLETT. 1. VIRTUALLY, in effect though not in fact. 2. PIONEERS, those who go before to prepare a path for others. 3. RELIC, a memorial; lit., that which is left. (Lat. relictum, that which is left behind.) 4. MAW, the stomach. VALUABLE TREES OF AUSTRALIA. HUNDREDS upon hundreds of square miles of Western Australia are covered with forests of magnificent trees, many kinds of which are of great value to the housecarpenter, the machinist, and the ship-builder; but none of them more pre-eminently important than that which in common conversation is called "native mahogany." The qualities of this wood may even bear the palm when placed in rivalry with heart of oak. The white ant, the barnacle, and other boring insects are alike foiled by its power of resistance; but its most striking characteristic is, that it scarcely shows the slightest symptom of decay after having been many years steeped in water. A log, which had formed part of an old bridge, and had been seventeen years immersed, was exhibited in London in 1862, one of its sides being planed and polished, in order to show the slight extent to which it had deteriorated.2 Although exposed to water for so long a period, and with three feet of its length sunk in mud, one inch alone was in a state that could have been described as less good than new. bark of the mahogany grows in a singular manner, for it is matted round about the trunk in twisted lines. The The timber, which ranks next in importance, and is said, indeed, to be of nearly equal value for naval purposes, is another species of the same botanical class (Eucalyptus), known to the colonists as the "blue gum," which, in the words of an old report, "attains to a very considerable growth in many parts of the country, and exceeds the size required for beams of the largest man-of-war." The blue gum is said to be unfit for masts and spars on account of its great weight: it attains a straight growth of more than 100 feet without knot or branch; at this point it throws out its branches, the leaves upon which hang straight down from their stalks. This form of growth is common to all the large trees of Australia, which give no real shade, as the sun penetrates directly through their foliage. Another tree of this class is the "white gum," named from its bare white stem, from which the bark falls off I yearly. It is little valued as timber, differing in this respect from another brother, the "red gum," which furnishes a hard close-grained timber, but its numerous "gum veins" render it unfit for outer planking. The gum, which exudes from these trees, is an article of commerce, and is much used in Manchester and elsewhere for stiffening calico. It is used in Australia as a sweetmeat, and children seldom pass a tree without stuffing a piece into their mouths. Another close and hard-grained timber is that of the "York gum." I have heard of a pair of dray wheels made of this wood, which had been in constant use for more than four years without showing signs of decay. The Shea-oak has been found valuable to the cooper, and the wood is beautifully marked, and capable of being worked down to a very thin edge, but the chief use, to which it is applied, is the roofing of houses, for which purpose the wood is cut into long narrow pieces called "shingles," of the shape of slates or tiles: and this kind of roofing is common throughout Australia. To be a "shingle short" is a colonial phrase, indicative of the same state of mind which is described in Scotland by the expression of "a bee in the bonnet." A vast number of sandal-wood trees grow in West Australia; these are chiefly sent to China, where they are burned in the idol temples; the sweet scented wood is much prized by turners. Many other valuable trees grow in Australia, as the "raspberry jam," and many other acacias, which bear thousands of beautiful flowers; the wood and blossoms of the raspberry jam have a sweet perfume resembling the preserve, from which it is named. A most curious and important vegetable production is the grass-tree (Xanthorrhea), called "Black-boy" by the colonists. The stem is bare, and often quite straight, about ten or fourteen inches in diameter, with a wide spreading foliage at the top, which one must call grass for want of a better name, though it quite as much resembles rushes; on which, in many of the runs, the cattle depend mainly for their food. The last year's crop, if it has not been eaten off, hangs down like a beard, brown and faded, in which state it is used for all descriptions of thatching, having only one drawback, its inflammability. The Black-boys vary in height from one foot to twenty, and when seen for the first time, and from a distance, might easily be mistaken for savages dressed in the wavy head-dress of the South Sea Islanders. When the upper part is of a fresh green colour, there often rises from the centre of the grass a tall slender rod shaped like a bulrush or a poker. The colour of the stem is not naturally black, but brown; nevertheless, most of them are so completely blackened with bush-fires, that they look as much like a piece, of stove-piping as can well be imagined. The body of the tree is most curiously formed of shining resinous flakes, which are highly inflammable, and when set alight, burn with great brilliancy. Another useful production of the colony is "palm wool," a fine elastic substance resembling wool, which is found at the base of the leaves or fronds of the Zamia, a kind of palm, which grows freely on Swan River; it is much used for bedding and similar purposes. In spite, however, of all these trees, and many others of nearly equal value, one looks in vain for any fruit-bearing trees, or indeed any eatable vegetable; and though the scarlet seed-pods of the Zamia are eaten, they are decidedly poisonous unless buried underground for a fortnight. Our little native girl once dug up for me a root about two inches long, which she begged me to taste, and which was not amiss. The only wild fruit that I ever heard of was the native cherry, a fruit almost entirely composed of a hard kernel the size of a marble, with a thin outside rind that has an acid taste, and of which the colonists make a sweetmeat in default of anything better. The stone is buff-coloured and much corrugated, and when a good number of them are strung together, and alternated with the nuts of the sandal-wood, they make a pretty row of beads, a purpose for which nature seems to have intended them. Western Australia is, however, essentially a land of flowers, and myriads of lovely plants overrun the ground, which are the ornaments of our conservatories at home."Life in West Australia," by MRS MILLETT. 1. FOILED, baffled. 2. DETERIORATED, made worse, reduced in quality. 3. CORRUGATED, wrinkled, drawn into folds. CHARACTER OF THE HAPPY WARRIOR. WHO is the happy warrior? Who is he What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn; |