Page:Diary of ten years.djvu/154

 136 particles. Can you imagine a tree composed of coarse granite?—such is the banksia. The wattle—what shall I compare it to? the Portugal laurel is the nearest in resemblance that I can think of. We have also the swamp or the oak (casuarina), and the cabbage or beef-wood tree, with a splendid orange blossom. These are our principal trees and large shrubs; the three first bear seed-vessels like acorns. The banksia is also called honeysuckle tree, from a sweet-tasting substance which is contained in its flowering cone. The wattle bears seed like a long pea-pod. There are vines bearing grapes in the botanical garden. The casuarina is excellent timber for the lathe, and our mahogany is beautiful for furniture: specimens of it have been sent home. The bark of the wattle, and of others, is good for tanning; the red gum tree produces gum in abundance; the broom tree, zamia, grass tree, wattle, hakea, and others, also produce gum like the Arabic. The large grass tree (zanthoria hastilis), yields a powerful cement; you will see it on the stone hatchets which I send you. There may be many other things of which we have not yet found out the peculiar properties.

Many persons are trying to salt fish, which are very numerous in the river about and below Perth, as you must have seen by one of my letters, in which I mentioned our having taken 10,000 at one draught of the seine; these are of the kind called herrings, but do not look very like them; they make a noise when out of the water, and on that account are also called trumpeters. The rack, or king fish, is as large as salmon; the snapper, or bream (a deep-sided fish, not unlike the roach), the mullet, a thick-shouldered, blunt-headed fish, the silver fish (perch), and the guard fish, sometimes come up the river. There is another species, somewhat of the nature of an eel, with a sharp spine which it can erect at pleasure; this is caught only in the fresh water, and is called a cobbler; a kind resembling it in salt water is named