Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 2.djvu/442

398 Low Head, its eastern point, is a lighthouse rising to one hundred and forty feet above the sea. Thickets of tea-shrub fringe its banks, and here and there the temporary log-hut of some recent settler, who has cleared away just sufficient elbow-room in the woods for himself and family, breaks upon the solitude of the scene.

The only birds I saw in my course down the river were four black swans (Cygnus atratus), a cormorant, and a few gulls.

On my return I made a detour from Tunbridge to the lakes; ascending the western tier to an altitude of above three thousand feet, passing for the most part over greenstone rocks, with an occasional outcrop of sandstone. Lake Sorell is between five and six miles in length, and at its broadest part, about the same in width; its shores encircled with wood, and indented by small sandy beaches. The southern extremity is of irregular form from the number of wooded promontories jutting out, and on its S.W. side is a small islet.

Ten black swans with a few ducks and divers were all that I saw on its broad surface.

Lake Crescent lies to the southward of it, and is about four miles in length and two in breadth; with a level isthmus about half a mile broad, of swampy ground, covered by long grass, intervening between it and Lake Sorell, through which meanders a narrow rivulet uniting both lakes.

From the lakes to Bothwell, the country is wild, rugged, and hilly, interspersed with swamp and marsh, and covered by the primitive forests through which winds the River Clyde. The town of Bothwell is situated in a circular valley, bounded by distant hills of moderate height. The approach to it is over a green plain, about four miles in extent. Ten miles further on I examined a bed of micaceous shale, which crops out in a remarkably deep gorge in the trappean rocks, and dips south at an angle of fifteen degrees.