the highest mountain but one in Tasmania, and the fountain head
of several rivers. Here is another instance of topographical
mis-nomenclature in Tasmania. If the truth were known, it probably, in
no particular, resembles the Ben Lomond of Scotland. Its bold broken
and rugged outline at once arrests the visitor’s attention. It, in this
particular, presenting such striking contrast to the smoothly rounded
hills in the neighborhood. This feature is due to the fact, that its
summit consists of diorite, _i. e._ trap rock used as metal for the
roads. The granite, as already stated, has burst through the stratified
formations, and it in turn has been disrupted by the diorite which
covers it with a capping, and this occurred during a far subsequent
period known to geologists as the great Volcanic Epoch. Many, and
diverse are the forms the outline of this mountain present as the
traveller speeds along. At one time its southernmost part presents the
appearance of a lion _couchant_. A mile or two further on, and this
resemblance no longer exists, and is like anything the imagination of
the spectator can supply. On the eastern escarpment, near the foot
of the mountain there is coal, and also auriferous quartz lodes. The
latter only is worked.
When about half the distance to Fingal is accomplished, there is
another short stoppage to change horses at a roadside stable, and a
little further on the visitor sees an antiquated vestige of former days
in the shape of a ruined dwelling. It is known as Grenbers Haunted
House. Tradition has it, that a horrible murder was committed there in
the early days of the colony, and no one will live in it on account of
the nightly visitations of the ghost of the murdered man. Yonder lofty
hill, with the peculiar cone-shaped rock-mass rising high from the
centre of the summit, is Tower Hill, where gold mining in the quartz
lodes is carried on with apparently not very satisfactory results.
As the traveller proceeds along the smooth and winding road, he will
observe that some of the cuttings have been made to a considerable
depth through very rounded pebbles and boulders of quartz, and granite,
interspersed occasionally with slate, sandstone, and greenstone, while
bands of gravel are frequently interstratified. These are the ancient
bed of the South Esk river, rolling now more than one hundred feet
below, through the valley, and they tell him that many ages ago at
this height that river flowed. These exposed terraces alternate with
cuttings through the Silurian beds, exposing in vertical sections
quartz veins, traversing the almost vertical, and very much contorted
slates and sandstones. He has now reached “Tullochgorum,” the fine
property of James Grant, Esq., where the neat villa is just discernible
through the foliage of willows which surround it. In half an hour more
he will enter the township of