This tree is, from this combination of useful qualities, a vegetable production of no slight value, and probably comes near the cocoa-nut tree in value. Its worth is well known to the natives for its vicinity is one of their favourite haunts. Around nearly all of them I have found marks of their fires, and on many of these trees were several successive rows of notches, formed in this manner:
13. Three rows of notches made by people on the Gouty-Stem Tree.
All but the last row being invariably scratched out. These rows of notches were evidently of different ages, and I imagine must indicate the number of nuts taken each year from the tree.* I often also found rude drawings scratched upon the trees, but none of these sketches indicated anything but a very ordinary degree of talent, even for a savage: some were so imperfect that it was impossible to tell what they were meant to represent.
(*Footnote. This tree was also observed on this part of the continent by Captain King, who met with it both at Cambridge Gulf and Careening Bay, and describes it as follows: Mr. Cunningham was fortunate in finding the fruit of the tree that was first seen by us at Cambridge Gulf, and had for some time puzzled us from its immense size and peculiar appearance. It proved to be a tree of the Natural Order Capparides, and was thought to be a Capparis; the gouty habit of the stem, which was soft and spongy, gave it an appearance of disease; but as all the specimens, from the youngest plant to the full-grown tree, possessed the same deformed appearance, it was evidently the peculiarity of its habit. The stem of the largest of these trees measured twenty-nine feet in girt, whilst its height did not exceed twenty-five feet. It bore some resemblance to the Adansonia figured in the account of Captain Tuckey's expedition to Congo. King's Australia volume 1 page 423.)
14. Gigantic Ants' Nest and Gouty-Stem Tree. Drawn on stone by George Barnard from a sketch by Captain George Grey. M. and N. Hanhart, Lithographic Printers, 64 Charlotte Street, Rathbone Place.
SINGULAR PIECES OF SANDSTONE.