178 Sydney-Hobart-Canberra but not outgiving. Prof. Barber, head of botany at the university, must be a very important and busy man - seems only vaguely aware of what his staff is doing. This is summer vacation, of course. Sunday, January 17. Heat wave ended last night with a moderate cold front. Thunderstorms and local heavy rain this afternoon and evening. Over 400 sq. miles of forest burnt in Tasmania; some still burning. Day spent on 4165 ft. Mt. Wellington, which rises immediately to W. of city. Good motor road to top. In morning Don Martin drove and was my guide. He has published a study of plant zonation on the mountain and knows many species on sight. About 4 zones of Eucalyptus forest, beginning with E. obliqua and ending with a snow gum (E. coccifera). Some fine E. regnans on middle slopes. Nothofagus cunninghamii abundant as a tree up to c. 20 m. high as an in gullies from c. 2000 ft. up to snow country at c. 3500 ft.; above that and into the E. coccifera zone it occurs as a shrub of 2-4 m. forming large, discrete clumps. E. coccifera goes into an alpine shrub zone as a shrub, but does not reach to the summit. Extensive rocky (dolerite) plateau on top. Great variety of prostrate and rounded shrubs (Epacridaceae, Compositae, Myrtaceae, Exocarpus sp., etc.), big stiff gray clumps of Astelia alpina (wider, larger and stiffer in leaf than the New Guinea form), one bright green cushion plant (Abrotanella fosteroides), a small Poa, fewé other grasses and Restionaceae. There is local indignation about a TV tower which is being built dn top, and especially the wide clearing for a power line up the mountain. After lunch I was taken up the mountain again by Max Bennett, an admini-strative officer of C.S.I.R.O. and keen naturalist. Saw much more of the summit area, walked into a gully about 1/2 way up mountain (with small beech and sassafras), and to a picnic spot at c. 1500 ft. where great tree ferns ("man-ferns"), Dicksonia antarctica, were a fine sight. Evening with the Bennetts at Taroona, an eastern suburb 5 miles out on shore of the harbor. Monday, January 18. Left Hobart 10:55 a.m. by Viscount jet-prop, arrived Melbourne 12:30. Left Melbourne 4:30, arrived Canberra 5:45 (Fokker Friendship jet-prop with 2 Rolls Royce motors). At Hotel Canberra. Smooth, comfortable flying, but the turbo-jets fly high (15,000 - 20,000 ft.) and clouds blotted out most of the land. Hobart cooled by a SW wind this morning. Impressions there are of quiet streets, old Georgian stone, roses, hollyhocks, and cathedral bells. Town of 105,000, established as a convict settlement in 180l, later an important whaling port. Melbourne's population approaching 2 million. Big, busy plains city, stained with red dust and sternly moral. No Sunday paper; pubs close at 6 p.m. Saw no man or women in shorts. Temperature in 70's today. Docks were idled toward end of last week by heat. A river port on the muddy Yarra, "too thick to drink, too thin to plow." Tuesday, January 19. Most of day spent in talking shop in C.S.I.R.O. offices, chiefly with R.D. Hoogland (Systematic Botanist) and Ross Robins (Plant Ecologist) of Regional Surveys Division. Hoogland has been on the