trunk. The flowers are produced upon this spadix: they are very small, and are succeeded by round seeds, red externally, but white, and as hard as horn, internally. As the seeds advance toward maturity, the spadix becomes green. The young, unfolded leaves of this Cabbage-tree, rise perpendicularly, in the centre of the crest. In this state, they are used for making brooms; those still unprotruded, and remaining enclosed within the sheaths of the older leaves, form a white mass, as thick as a man's arm; they are eaten raw, boiled or pickled. In a raw state, they taste like a nut, and boiled, they resemble artichoke-bottoms. The seeds furnish food for the Wood-quest, a large species of pigeon, which has a bronzed head and breast, and is white underneath, and principally, slate-coloured, on the back and wings. This bird is so unconscious of danger, as to sit till taken by a noose at the end of a stick; when one is shot, another will sometimes remain on the same bough, till itself also is fired at. We measured a Norfolk Island Pine, twenty-three feet, and another twenty-seven feet, in circumference. Some of them are nearly two hundred feet high. The timber is not of good quality, but it is used in building; it soon perishes when exposed to the weather. This is said to be the case with all the other kinds of wood on the Island. Norfolk Island Iron-wood, Olea apetala, is the only other sort, reputed to be worth using. No fences of wood are expected to stand above three years. Vegetation is rapid, in this fine climate, but decay is also rapid. There are very few dead logs lying in the bush. A group of the remarkable trees of this Island, are represented in the annexed sketch.

In the course of our walk, we had some conversation with two prisoner stock-keepers, who were Roman Catholics; to whom we offered a bible and some tracts, to instruct them in their solitude. One of them declined accepting them, saying that, according to their church, he had been instructed by his parents and their priests, from a child, not to read the Bible! The other said he was not against reading the Bible, but that it was the most dangerous book that could be put into the hands of an illiterate man! However, on reflection, they both concluded, that they would read the

Bible, as they were not able to attend public worship at the Settlement, on account of the nature of their occupation.

29th. We visited the congregations of the Protestant and. Roman Catholic prisoners; and before they separated, availed ourselves of the opportunities, freely granted us, to express what we had to say to them. This being the last First-day in the month, the prisoners were mustered, and inspected by the civil surgeon, after the morning service. Their state of health is good; great attention is paid to cleanliness: they are not only required to wash themselves regularly, but every First-day morning, they all bathe in the sea, within the reef, opposite their barracks, and many of them bathe also in the course of the week.

30th. The weather has become stormy and wet. The temperature has lowered to 75°. From 65° to 85° in the shade, may be considered the usual range of the thermometer here it rarely falls below 65° in winter, or rises above 85° in summer; and the night is but little cooler than the shade is in the day. The temperature is registered three times in the day, at the Hospital.

In a visit to the Jail, we had conversation with a man of great recklessness; of such, there are several on this Island. He was confined in a cell, for misdemeanour, and was chafed in his mind, and ready to blame any one rather than himself, for his sufferings. He said, he doubted the being of a Deity, but wished, if there were a God in heaven, that he would deprive him of life, he was so miserable: also, that he had only five years to serve as a prisoner, but he knew he should not live out half his time; for before it was half expired, he should die upon the drop. He told us likewise, that when out of prison, he was miserable still, and said, that if the officers took as much pains to annoy the prisoners, as many of the prisoners took to annoy one another, the place would be worse than hell itself. We endeavoured to direct the poor infatuated man, to the proof, afforded by himself, and by others of such character, of the overruling of the Most High, in the misery dispensed to them for their perverseness and wickedness.

Awful is the state of those who are in the gall of bitterness,

and the bond of iniquity! This Island, beautiful by nature, and comparable to the Garden of Eden, is rendered, not only a moral wilderness, but a place of torment to these men, not so much by the punishments of the law, as by their conduct one to another. They form schemes of mischief, and betray one another; and being idly disposed, they are very generally chafed, by the exertions of the prisoneroverseers, to keep them at work. Being surrounded by the ocean, and all other lands being so distant, the hope of escape is precluded. This renders the wicked, very wretched, particularly men of bad conduct, sentenced for life. Those of reformed character might be moderately comfortable, were it not for the society of the depraved.

4th mo. 2nd. We walked to the north side of the Island, to visit a "felling-gang," whom we found busy, rolling the trunk of a large Pine, to a saw-pit. While they were thus engaged, we explored an adjacent gulley, shaded by dense forest, and abounding with ferns, and young palms. On the upper branches of the trees four epiphytes of the orchis tribe, and some ferns and Peperomias were plentiful. The Peperomias, which are spreading, green plants, allied to Pepper, grow also on moist rocks, on the dark sides of which, Trichomanes Bauerianum, a membranaceous fern, of great beauty, forms tufts exceeding a foot in height.

Having had a religious interview with the men, we proceeded to visit some others, near Ansons Bay, who have charge of a flock of sheep, kept for supplying the officers with fresh meat: of this privilege the well-conducted prisoners also, are occasionally permitted to partake. Some cows and pigs are likewise kept on the Island, and each free person is allowed a small quantity of milk, daily.

On the rocks of the south coast, Asplenium diforme, a fern resembling the Sea Spleenwort, Asplenium marinum, of England, is found. At a short distance from the shore, its leaves become more divided, and in the woods, in the interior of the Island, they are separated into such narrow segments, that the lines of fructification are thrown upon their margins. It then becomes Canopteris odontites. But every possible gradation is to be met with between