Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/251

] on the beach. Thee rafts are only fit for croing the water when the ea is very tranquil; otherwie they would oon be broken aunder by the force of the waves. As the avages poes the art of hollowing the trunks of trees by means of fire, they might employ the ame method to make themelves canoes; but the art of navigation has made as little progres amongt them as the ret.

Having arrived at the extremity of the trait, I found ome fine crytals of feld-path in everal rocks of very hard and tone.

On the tops of the hills I met with the plant decribed by Phillips, in his account of his voyage to Botany-bay, under the name of the yellow gum-tree. As it was already in eed, I had no opportunity of examining the characters requiite for determining its genus. To me it appears to belong to that of dracæna. The grains were contained in long ears, filled with a vat number of larvæ, which are afterwards metamorphoed into mall phalenæ of the moth kind.

The gum-rein which flows from this plant is very atringent, and might, no doubt, be ued with advantage in medicine. The gummy principle with which it abounds, renders it more apt to mix with the fluids of the human body, and ought to give it a preference before many other atringents that are employed. Amongt