Page:Journals of Several Expeditions Made in Western Australia.djvu/182

 advantage, but would turn several mills. They are both to be approached by light boats, and even a deep one can go within some fathoms of the first.

The plain of considerable extent, but varying in breadth between the south side of the harbour and the sea-coast range of hills, is, with little exception, destitute of large timber, but thickly covered with small shrubs, rushes, or rather scirpi, which make no despicable food for cattle, and possess the advantage of being verdant and good, throughout the protracted droughts of summer. The soil is very sandy, black loam and mould, similar to that in the hollows at the settlement; very retentive of water, and therefore, in the advanced months of winter, marshy, although at present still dry. The hills are shrubby with hollows of pasture.

The whole of this irregular tongue of land appears fitted by nature for pasturing flocks and herds of cattle, on their first importation, and one or two persons, at its western part or root, could readily prevent straying. A fresh-water lake, about four hundred yards from the S.E. extremity of the long sandy beach, that runs from the point where Mistaken Island nearly joins the mainland, round the western part of the sound, may, at some future period, become highly advantageous as a watering place for large ships and numerous fleets. Wood for fuel is, however, here very thinly scattered.

The upper and northern part of the range of hills, looking to the plain before mentioned, often exposes, particularly on the slope, the peculiar calcareous formation of the S.W. coast, and seemed, from a superficial examination, to afford a lime-