poor, being principally a mixture of quartzose sand and a large proportion of marine exuviae, yet this tree grows to a considerable size, but covering the surface of the island, gives it a monotonous appearance which is however occasionally relieved by a spreading undescribed species of melaleuca (allied to Melaleuca armillaris, Smith) and the more elegant pittosporum, an arborescent species, also undescribed.  In fact, these three trees constitute the timber of the island.  The ground is in some parts profusely clothed with Spinifex hirsutus, Labil., in which I detected a new species of xerotes, a round bushy plant growing in large bodies.

“No fresh water has ever been discovered upon this island:  indeed the loose filtering nature of the soil is not tenacious enough to retain that element at the surface.  The woods are abundantly stocked with a small species of kangaroo of which we saw only the traces; nor did we see the animal, on account of whose numbers and resemblance to a rat the island received its name from Vlaming in 1619.  M. Peron says that it forms a new genus, and of a very remarkable character.* Rottnest Island does not appear ever to have been inhabited or even visited by the natives from the main; probably on account of the stormy nature of the weather, and the prevalence of westerly winds, which would be quite sufficient to deter them from venturing to sea in such fragile vessels as they possess."**

(Footnote.  Peron volume 1 page 189.)

(**Footnote.  Cunningham manuscripts.)

January 15.

On our return to the brig, we passed over a clear sandy bottom that would have afforded better anchorage than where we had brought up; for the vessel was not only exposed to a considerable swell but the ground was so foul that in weighing the anchor the following morning one of the flukes hooked a rock and broke off, besides which the cable was much rubbed.

As Swan River had been very minutely examined in Baudin’s voyage by MM.  Heirisson and Baily, the former an enseigne de vaisseau, the latter a mineralogist, an account of which is fully detailed in De Freycinet’s and Peron’s respective accounts of that voyage,* without their finding anything of sufficient importance to induce me to risk leaving the brig at anchor off Rottnest Island for so long a time as it would necessarily take to add to the knowledge of it that we already possess, I did not think it advisable to delay for such a purpose, and therefore as soon as we were underweigh steered for the mainland and continued to run northerly along the shore at the distance of six miles from it.  At noon our latitude was 31 degrees 37 minutes 32 seconds.  The coast is formed by sandy hillocks, or dunes, of from one hundred to one hundred and fifty feet high, here and there sprinkled with shrubs, but in many parts quite bare:  behind this frontier a second range of hills was occasionally seen on which the trees appeared to be of moderate size:  the