the doors were to be seen, amongst groups of dogs, poultry, and pigs, of all ages, a considerable number of half-caste children, full of health and vivacity. The amusements of the several gentlemen here as sembled were various. It may seem strange that people should seek for amusement in an infant colony; but for the time being, the proceedings of individuals were para lyzed by the unlooked-for and strange decisions of the Legislative Council of New South Wales; amusement was, therefore, the only means of killing time. Some em ployed themselves in shooting pigeons in the neighbouring woods, or in fishing, others in building boats. I devoted a good deal of my time to rambling along the shores, which presented some remarkable geological appearances. That side of Coromandel Harbour which separates it from the sea, consists of a high and wooded island, with vast precipices of a concrete argillaceous rock, thickly studded with balls or nodules of a ferruginous clay, varying from the size of a pebble or a hen’s egg to that of masses nearly a foot in diameter. Of these nodules, several that I examined consisted of concentric layers, disposed like the coats of an onion. They appeared to have been rolled into their peculiar shape by the action of water, subsequently embedded in mud, and afterwards elevated, in a hardened state, by volcanic agency. To this rock, in describing the island of Wyheke, I have elsewhere applied the name of amygdaloidal trap, as more expressive of its geological character than the names of pudding stone or conglomerate. In another part of the harbour I observed clefts in this species of rock which contained quantities of a mineral substance resembling, externally, copper ore, which it was unhesitatingly pro-
