When, at last, the table was cleared, except for the granite-ware basin full of punch, and when all available cups were mustered and tobacco-pouches came out, a remarkably genial spirit pervaded the companywith three exceptions.

The General smacked his lips, and set down the granite cup.

It is no more so than the granite statues in the Vatican are portraits of Philadelphus and Arsinoë.

The traveller is whirled by culverts, abutments, and walls of dressed granite, through cuttings where the earth on either side is carefully paved or turfed to the summit.

All is polished pink granite and marble and bronze.

On all sides are double rows of Titanic columns, each a single block of polished granite with bronze capital.

Colossal masses of bronze statuary are grouped over each front; high above the roof and surrounding the great drums of the domes are lines of giant columns in granite bearing giant statues in bronze; and crowning all rises the vast central dome, flanked by its four smaller domes, all heavily plated with gold.

The eastern coast of Corsica and Sardinia, for a space of more than two hundred geographical miles being nearly rectilinear, in a direction from north to south; and, Captain Smyth has informed me, consisting almost entirely of granite, or, at least, of primitive rocks.

But it may be noticed that Wilson's Promontory, the most southern point of New South Wales, and the principal islands in Bass Strait, contain granite; and that primitive rocks occur extensively in Van Diemen's Land. (*Footnote.

The granite, on the south coast, at Investigator's Islands, and westward, at Middle Island, Cape Le Grand, King George's Sound, and Cape Naturaliste, is very wide of the line above-mentioned, and nothing is yet known of its relations.) (**Footnote.

A compound of quartz, mica, and felspar, having the appearance of re-composed granite. CAPE CLEVELAND, about one hundred and twenty miles north of Repulse Island.

Yellowish-grey granite, with brown mica; "from the summit of the hill."

Reddish granite, of very fine grain; with the aspect of sandstone.

Close-grained grey and yellowish-grey granite, with brown mica.

Grey granite of several varieties; from a peaked hill under Mount Cook and its vicinity.

Grey granite, consisting of brown and white mica, quartz, and a large proportion of felspar somewhat decomposed.

A granular compound, like sandstone recomposed from the debris of granite.

The specimens of the rocks in its vicinity are, dark grey granite, somewhat approaching to gneiss, with a few specks of garnet; and a calcareous, probably concretional stone, enclosing the remains of shells, with cavities lined with crystals of calcareous spar.

MOUNT CALEDON, on the mainland, west of Caledon Bay, consists of grey granite, with dark brown mica in small quantity; and on the sides and top of the hill large loose blocks of that rock were observed, resting upon other blocks.

A small island, near Cape Arnhem, is also composed of granite, in which the felspar has a bluish hue.

Granite, composed of grey and somewhat bluish felspar, dark brown mica, and a little quartz; containing minute disseminated specks of molybdena, and indistinct crystals of pale red garnet.

The specimen of the former resembles gneiss, or mica slate, near the contact with granite: the sandstone is thick-slaty, quartzose, of a reddish hue, with mica disseminated on the surfaces of the joints; and one face of the specimen is incrusted with quartz crystals, thinly coated with botryoidal hematite.

Another specimen of sandstone is friable, of a light flesh-red colour, and apparently composed of the debris of granite.

Grey and reddish sandstone; apparently composed of the debris of granite, and very nearly resembling that of Simms Island above-mentioned.

Yellowish grey granite, from Bald-head.