Page:Journals of Several Expeditions Made in Western Australia.djvu/211

 side, may be seen strong excrescences, resembling the stems of shrubs, sometimes very slender, sometimes as large as the timber of a large tree; one might imagine with the poet that nature had first given birth to a thicket,

Then framed a shell when the work was done. And changed the hazel wainds to stone.

They do not, however, on close examination, appear to have in them anything analagous to incrustation, but to be the harder parts of the rock that have resisted the action of the atmosphere, probably zoophytes, embedded in a more friable matrix, which had disappeared from around them, and blown away in the form of sand: there are nodules of a closer grained limestone, to be seen protruding above the surface, sometimes yellow, much resembling Grallo Anticho, and sometimes black or slate coloured. From the White Patch, we walked on the beach in the hope of finding water, for we had now been many hours without any, and it was very hot, and walking laborious. We now descried the wished for renovator, trickling out of the rock; and as the sun was now "pillowing his head upon the western wave," we halted—fortunately found wood enough for a fire, and gave up the idea of reaching the Turnerian stream that night. Limestone was still abundant on the beach, wearing a foliated appearance; the laminae so thin, that it may possibly become a matter of fiscal consideration to Government, applied to the purpose of roofing; I had saved many specimens, but one of the men accidentally lost them, by removing my cap, in which I had placed them.

We started at 8 o'clock the next morning, preparing for an early march to Augusta. Instead of