Page:Journals of Several Expeditions Made in Western Australia.djvu/25

 settlement will speedily be extended to a profitable length, and the comforts and happiness of the settler considerably augmented. In addition to the varieties of mahogany, gumtrees, &c., a valuable species of oak, and of large dimensions, has been found in the country north of Augusta, a new and very promising settlement, at the embouchure of the Blackwood river. One district has been found peculiarly adapted to the culture of the vine, which may here be conducted, as at the pyramidal rocks of Goodesburg, up the almost naked front of the limestone cliffs. The waters of the saltpools, when an intercourse shall be opened between the sea and the interior, may be compelled to evaporate and yield their briny depositions to the children of industry and enterprise; and the cotton plant may yet be seen putting forth its beautiful flowers on the Australian saline marshes as vigourously as in the transatlantic world. A good brick clay supplies convenient and manageable material for building; but there can be no doubt it will shortly be superseded by the more permanent natural material of granite or limestone, when passable roads and navigable rivers shall render the removal of heavy masses practicable.

In estimating the probable chances of success, the ingenuity of the settler ought to be directed to