of the leader for geological definitions.  He says—­“The formation of Dunk Island is clay slates and micaceous schist.  A level stratum of a soft, greasy, and very red decomposing granitic clay was exposed along the southwest tide-flats, and quartz veins and blue slates were found on the same side of the island further in!” The huge granite boulders on the south-east aspect and the granite escarpments on the shoulders of the hills above did not apparently attract attention.

One feature then existent has also disappeared.  The explorers referred to the belt of magnificent calophyllum trees along the margin of the south-west beach, and Mr Dalrymple thus describes a vegetable wonder—­ “Some large fig-trees sent out great lateral roots, large as their own trunks, fifty feet into salt water; an anchor-root extending perpendicularly at the extremity to support them.  Thence they have sent up another tree as large as the parent stem, at high-water presenting the peculiarity of twin-trees, on shore and in the sea, connected by a rustic root bridge.”  These trees have no place or part now.

My chronicles are fated to be tinged with the ashen hue of the commonplace, though the scenes they attempt to depict are all of the sun-blessed tropics.

SATELLITES AND NEIGHBOURS

Consultation of the map will show that Dunk Island has four satellites and seven near relations.  Though not formally included in the Family Group it stands as sponsor to all its members, and overlords the islets within a few yards of its superior shores.  The official chart has been revised,

Only a few examples of current titles are given, as the crowding in of the full list would have obscured the map in a maze of words.  Many of the geographical titles of the blacks are without meaning, being used merely to indicate a locality.  Others were bestowed because of the presence of a particular tree or plant or a remarkable rock.  Some few commemorate incidents.  Two places on Dunk Island perpetuate the names of females.  The coast-line is so varied that specific names for localities a few hundred yards apart hardly seem necessary; but the original inhabitants, frugal of their speech, found it less trouble to strew names thickly than to enter into explanations one to another when relating the direction and extent which the adventures and the sport of the day led them.  Few names for any part of the island away from the beach seem to have existed, although the site of camps along the edge of the jungle, and even in gullies as remote as may be from the sea, are even now apparent.  Camps were not honoured by titles, but all the creeks and watercourses and other places where water was obtainable were so invariably, and camps were generally, though not always, made near water.