EXCURSION TO MOUNT NAPIER.
Having directed the alteration to be made during my intended absence I set out for Mount Napier and soon found the broad swamp before me. After riding up an arm of it to the left for a mile and a half I found it passable and, having crossed, we proceeded towards the hill by a rather circuitous route but over a fine tract of country although then very soft under our horses' feet.
CROSS SOME FINE STREAMS.
We next reached a deeper ravine where the land on each side was more open and also firmer, while a small rivulet flowing through it amongst bushes was easily crossed, and we ascended some fine rising ground beyond it. Rich flats then extended before us and we arrived at an open grassy valley where a beautiful little stream resembling a river in miniature was flowing rapidly. Two very substantial huts showed that even the natives had been attracted by the beauty of the spot and, as the day was showery, I wished to return if possible to pass the night there, for I began to learn that such huts with a good fire before them made very comfortable quarters in bad weather.
NATIVES VERY TIMID.
We had heard voices in the woods several times this day but their inhabitants seemed as timid as kangaroos and not more likely to come near us. The blue mass of Mount Napier was visible occasionally through the trees, but I found as we proceeded that we were not so near it as I had supposed, for at three miles beyond the little stream we came upon one of greater magnitude, a small river flowing southward with open grassy banks in which two kinds of trap-rock appeared. The edge of a thin layer of the lowest, a nearly decomposed trap, projected over the stream; the other lay in rounded blocks in the face of the hill above, and appeared to be decomposed amygdaloid, principally felspar. The river ran through a valley where the forest land was remarkably open, being sprinkled with only a few trees as in a park, and this stream appeared to fall into the head of the extensive swamp already mentioned. About a mile beyond the river (which I named the Shaw) we came upon the extremities of Mount Napier, for at least so I considered some rough sharp-pointed fragments of rock laying about in heaps, which we found it very difficult and tedious to ride over: indeed so sharp-edged and large were these rocks on the slopes of the terraces they formed that we were often obliged to dismount and lead our horses. In these fragments I recognised the cellular character of the rocks I had noticed in the bed of the Shaw. The rock here might have been taken for decomposed amygdaloid but, having found the vestiges of an old crater in the summit of the hill, I was induced to consider it an ancient lava. The reefs at Portland Bay consist of the same rock in rounded nodules, a more compact trap-rock consisting principally of felspar lying above them, as was observable in the section of the coast. In some of the fragments on Mount Napier these cells or pores were several inches in diameter and, unlike amygdaloidal rocks, all were quite empty. The surface consisted wholly of this stone, without any intermediate soil to soften its asperity under the feet of our horses, and yet it was covered with a wood of eucalyptus and mimosa, growing there as on the open forest land between which and this stony region the chief difference consisted in the ruggedness of surface, this being broken as already stated into irregular terraces where loose stones lay in irregular heaps and hollows, most resembling old stone quarries. We travelled over three miles of this rough surface before we reached the base of the cone.
CRATER OF MOUNT NAPIER OR MURROA.
On the sides of it we found some soft red earth mixed with fragments of lava and on reaching the summit I found myself on the narrow edge of a circular crater composed wholly of lava and scoriae. Trees and bushes grew luxuriantly everywhere except where the sharp rocks shot up almost perpendicularly. The igneous character of these was so obvious that one of the men thrust his hand into a chasm to ascertain whether it was warm.
VIEW FROM THE SUMMIT.
The discovery of an extinct volcano gave additional interest to Mount Napier, but it was by no means a better station for the theodolite on that account; on the contrary it was the worst possible for, as the trees grew on the edge of the crater, no one station could be found to afford a view of the horizon until the whole circumference was cleared of the trees, and this was too great a work for us at that visit. Mount William and the Grampian range presented a noble outline to the northward. The sun had set before I could recognise distant points in the highly interesting country to be seen from this remarkable hill. The weather was also unfavourable and I descended to pass the night at its base in hopes that the next morning might be clear.