USC65_0003

fine fresh-water creeks pouring into the sea all
round the coast, no wells have ever been sunk
deep enough to reach it. On or near the coast
no wells are needed, there is plenty of water on the
surface there.
No wthis description of Great Sandy hills must convey
the idea of a hopeless barren desert, but strange to
say, the very opposite is the case, the whole island
is covered from shore to shore with trees, scrubs &
bushes, with grass in the few open patches.
Near the shores and for a mile of two inland, the
timber-trees (except the valuable Cypress-Pine)
are stunted in growth and of little value, but
when the inland mountains and valleys are
reached a wonderful change of scene meets the
eye, the traveller strikes a living wall of
giant timber trees up to 150 (one hundred & fifty) feet
high, buried in jungle-scrubs so thickly growing
that roads or tracks much be cut to enable one
to get through, great piles 100 to 200 feet clear to the
first limb, are there in thousands, straight-as an arrow.
but by far the greater number are much too big for piles,
and can only be used as as saw-mill logs up to about
four or five feet in diameter, containing from five to
six thousand feet in each tree. Then beyond
that limit again come the superior-giants, so big that no saw-
mills at present in use in Queensland have any machin-
-ery capable of handling them, so the timber-getter must
reluctantly pass them by and leave them for some future
saw-mills with bigger machinery, to deal with. Although
he has already made his roads right past them and
has his teams and railway and floating-plant on
the sport, it is no use, no mill can take them yet.
These great monarchs of the forest are from six to ten
feet in diameter, and contain from seven thousand to
thirty thousand feet of timber in each tree, some very