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Title: Memoir and Journal of an Expedition Organized by the ColonialGovernment of Western Australia, for the Purpose of Exploring theInterior of the Colony Eastward of the District of York.Author: Henry Maxwell Lefroy.* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *eBook No.: 1402261h.htmlLanguage: EnglishDate first posted: June 2014Date most recently updated: June 2014Produced by: Ned Overton.Project Gutenberg Australia eBooks are created from printed editionswhich are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright noticeis included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particularpaper edition.Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check thecopyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing thisfile.This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictionswhatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the termsof the Project Gutenberg AustraliaLicence which may be viewed online.

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Production Notes:

This memoir has been given a shorter title than that underwhich it appeared in the Perth newspaper,The Inquirer andCommercial News, between September and mid-October, 1863. Itsname appears in full just before the beginning of section II. Atable of contents has been added, the typographic schemesimplified, and a map from Trove inserted at the end. An attempthas been made to make the spelling of place names consistent withthe map at the end. The syllables "oo" and "ee" in English become"ü" and "ih" in German.

Memoir and Journal of anExpedition

Organized by the Colonial Government ofWestern Australia, for the Purpose of Exploring the Interior ofthe Colony Eastward of the District of York.

by Henry Maxwell Lefroy.

[CONTENTS.]

I.[Introduction]

[Lefroy to The ColonialSecretary.]

Sir.—I have the honor to reportto you for His Excellency's information that the Easternexploring expedition, under my charge, reached this townyesterday after noon, all, with the exception of colonialprisoner F. Hall, in excellent health, and having suffered nogreat privations or fatigue.

The party reached Narimbeen, a part of Mr Smith's station, andI believe the Mount Welcome of the chart, on the 23rd ultimo, andhaving rested there to refresh the horses, which much requiredrest, until 27th ultimo, on that evening I despatched the partyin the charge of Mr Robinson to follow Mr Smith's cart track intoYork, by easy stages, whilst Kowitch and myself rode round byMinilyeen (Mount Stirling,) the fine rocks of which locality Iwas anxious to examine. Having made this detour I joined theparty at Bunmull yesterday morning.

In the progress of the expedition it has been necessary toabandon three of the horses, they having become so weak as to beunable to follow, although carrying no loads but an empty ridingsaddle each. I trust however that all three of these willgradually recover their strength, and at length find their wayback to the settled districts. Several of the other horses havealso during the middle and latter portion of the expedition beenreduced to a very weak state, but have been brought in by easystages, and little or no loads to carry.

I have much pleasure In reporting that the whole countrytraversed by the expedition, eastward of Mount Welcome, graduallyimproves as to both pastoral and agricultural purposes, until atdistance of about 100 miles E.N.E. of that point we reached acountry of an exceedingly promising character, as to bothagricultural and pastoral purposes, but more especially theformer, and perhaps in this respect not surpassed by any districtof equal extent in Australia, as I estimate the rich alluvialsoils to cover more than half the entire surface of the furtherportion of this county.

The track of the expedition from Mount Welcome, outwards andhomewards, amounts to about 900 miles, the position of thefurthermost point readied is lat. 30degs. 30mins. S, long.122degs. 40mins. E, and our whole track is contained within theparallels of lat. 30degs. 20mins. S and lat. 32degs. S.

It is my intention to pack up and leave in the charge of Mr S.Parker, the remainder of the equipment of the expedition suppliedby the Colonial Government, to await your directions as to itsdisposal, and I hope to be able to leave this on the 4th or 5th,which will enable me to wait on you in Perth on the 7th inst.

I have the satisfaction to be able to report most favourablyas to the conduct of all the members of the expedition sinceleaving York, but as to Mr Robinson, his conduct throughout hasin every respect been such as to have merited my approval, andgained my esteem in no ordinary measure.

I would most respectfully request, as a well-merited rewardfor his services and good conduct throughout the expedition, thatHis Excellency will permit me to present to the native Kowitchthe double barrelled carbine which, he has carried during theexpedition, with a written permission to him to hold and retainthe same, as a reward of his good services in it, together with aportion of the surplus cartridges supplied for our use, and hisclothing and bedding, which may now be considered as wornout.

Perhaps, also His Excellency may approve that Mr Robinson andMr P. Edwards retain, for their personal use, the clothing andbedding provided for them by the Colonial Government. I have kepta journal of the incidents of each days travel, and of myobservations on the geology, the fauna, and the meteorology ofthe country traversed, a copy of which I shall be able to presentfor His Excellency's information, I trust, within a fewweeks.

On the whole I indulge a strong hope that His Excellency, andthe public generally, will, on perusal of my journal, concludethat the expedition has been successful as to its greatobject—the discovery of extensive tracts of land suitableto agricultural and pastoral purposes, and that the experience ofthe next few years will amply justify such a favourableopinion.

I have ventured to prepare the subjoined approximate estimateof the distribution of the surface of the soil of the entirecounter traversed eastward of Smith's station, taken asone whole, but I should mention that in the western moietyof this district the inferior descriptions of soil will largelypreponderate, and vice versâ in the eastern moiety.

The Hon. the Colonial Secretary.

Approximate estimate of the distribution of thesurface soils of the country traversed by the expedition eastwardto Mr Smith's station.

Tenacious alluvial soil in plains of very gentle slope, and inwide flat bottoms of valleys, and lake chains, of a rich redcolour, and apparently admirably adapted to the growth of wheat,and abounding in salt-bush.. 20 percent.

Tenacious alluvial soils, on hill sides and tops, of goodquality.. 2 per cent.

Sterile alluvials, generally forest covered, of a hard drytexture, and of small thickness, covering sandstone sedimentaryrock.. 10 per cent.

Free light but rich alluvial soils, of a rich red colour, andwell adapted to grain, and modern agricultural productsgenerally.. 16 per cent.

Hill tops covered with hard schists containing a small quantityof iron.. 1 per cent.

Hill sides covered with pebbles of the above, generallywater-worn, but sometimes angular, but unfit for either pastoralor agricultural purposes.. 3 per cent.

Thickets of all sorts.. 2 per cent

Poor quartzose sand-plains.. 10 per cent

Sand-plains of yellow coloured soil derived from feld-spar,covered with much coarse grass and other herbage on which, horsesand sheep will do well, and consequently such as will be taken upin pastoral leases.. 28 per cent.

Bare lake bottoms, generally of red clay.. 2 percent.

Samphire in lake bottoms and their margins, and on plainsadjacent to, but elevated slightly above the existing lakebottoms.. 6 per cent.

Projections and exposed intumescencies of bareprimitiveandunbroken granite, whether exhibited on hill sides, orprojecting from their to summits.. 1 per cent.

MEMOIR AND JOURNAL

OF

AN EXPEDITION

ORGANIZED BY THE COLONIAL GOVERNMENT OFWESTERN AUSTRALIA, AT THE REQUEST AND WITH THE AID OF THEAGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF THE YORK DISTRICT OF THAT COLONY, FOR THEPURPOSE OF EXPLORING THE INTERIOR OF THE COLONY EASTWARD OF THATDISTRICT, AND PLACED UNDER MY COMMAND BY ORDER OF HIS EXCELLENCYJ. S. HAMPTON, ESQ., GOVERNOR AND COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF.

HENRY MAXWELL LEFROY,

SUPERINTENDENT OF CONVICTS,

WESTERN AUSTRALIA.

[II.Organisation andPreparation]

The York Agricultural Society having requested the earnestattention of the Colonial Government to the expediency oforganizing a party for the purpose of exploring the interior ofthis Colony eastward of that District, for the especial purposeof discovering, if possible, new districts suitable forsheep-farming, and having requested that any expedition formedfor this purpose might be placed under my leadership, on March23, in company with Mr Locke Burges, a leading settler andstock-owner of this Colony, I waited on the Hon. the ColonialSecretary, at his office, for the purpose of conferring generallyon the subject of the projected expedition, the constitution andnumber of the party, the distribution of the expense of it asbetween the Colonial Government and the York AgriculturalSociety, and the leave of absence from my official duties whichhis Excellency might be disposed to grant me, so that I mightundertake the command of it.

The result of this interview was a scheme for theorganization, equipment, place and date of departure, duty, andfield of action of the proposed party, as follows,namely:—

1st.—That the party consist of myself, as leader, of oneor two young settlers, to be nominated by the York AgriculturalSociety, of one mounted policeman, of one convict, as my personalservant, and of one native.

2ndly.—That His Excellency be respectfully solicited togrant me leave of absence for three months, on full pay.

3rdly.—That the York Agricultural Society be requestedto supply 11 horses, (Mr Burges and myself undertaking to furnishone horse each in addition thereto,) all the provisions, and somefew specified articles of equipment; but that His Excellency besolicited to authorize the preparation and issue of all sucharticles of equipment as might be in the stores of the ImperialConvict Department established in this Colony, and of anyDepartment of the Colonial Government, or could be manufacturedwithin the former Department.

4thly.—That all stores and horses be collected in York,and ready tor delivery into my charge, by the 21st of April.

5thly.—That the party should endeavour to take a finaldeparture from Narimbeen, the extreme sheep station in thatdirection, and the property of Mr Smith, on or about the firstday of May.

Mr Barlee kindly undertook to submit to His Excellency, forhis information and approval, the above plan, and to communicatewithout delay with the Secretary of the York AgriculturalSociety, suggesting that he should lose no time in summoning anextraordinary meeting of the members of that Society, to obtain aformal expression of their views and wishes on the subjectgenerally, and as to the extent to which they would contributetowards the excuses and equipment of the Expedition.

April 3.—Rode to Crawley toconfer with Mr Barlee on the steps which it might be desirable totake to meet the unexpected event of the meeting of the YorkAgricultural Society, held on the 1st instant, having passedresolutions in favour of a considerable extension of the scale oforganization, and period of service, of the proposed party.

Mr Barlee authorised and directed me to proceed vigorouslywith all that portion of the equipment which, it had beendetermined, was to be prepared at the Convict Establishment,expressing a hope and assurance that the party would still beorganized mainly on the plan above stated, but intimating thatthe latter might be slightly modified to meet partially the moreextensive views of the York settlers.

April 10.—A letter, of which thefollowing is a copy, was this day addressed to the Secretary ofthe York Agricultural Society by the Hon. the ColonialSecretary:—

Sir,—In acknowledging yourletter of the 7th instant, stating that a meeting of the membersof the York Agricultural Society has been called for the purposeof reconsidering the subject of the proposed expedition to theeastward of York, I am directed by His Excellency the Governor tostate that Messrs. S. E. and L. C. Burges and Mr H. M. Lefroy metin my office yesterday for the purpose of discussing thequestion, and that it was determined to recommend to the YorkAgricultural Society that provision be made for an absence offour months from Mr Smith's station.

If a direct distance of 10 miles per day from this point bemade for one half of this period, and no good country be found,it would be useless to proceed further, and it would he equallyuseless to proceed so far if any quantity of good country bediscovered at a less distance.

To meet the wishes of the settlers, it is proposed to deferthe starting of the expedition from Mr Smith's station until the10th May.

His Excellency is prepared to sanction this course, and, inthe event of its meeting the concurrence of the settlers, toprovide, at the public expense, such extra pack-saddles, &c.,as may be required.

In regard to the appointment of some person as second incommand of the expedition, His Excellency will be prepared toconsider any suggestion which may be made by the Society.

Should the above suggestions meet the wishes of the settlers,it is desirable that the following suggestions should beconsidered, and that I should be favoured with a definite replyto them, namely:—

1st.—That a dray be at Perth on or before the 25thinstant, to receive and convey to York the portion of theequipment of the expedition to be provided by the Government.

2ndly.—That some farm in the immediate vicinity of Yorkbe appointed for the reception of the horses and equipment of theparty, not later than the 1st day of May.

3rdly.—That the pork for the party be at once hung up ina barn or shed to dry as far as possible, as its portability andutility will be considerably increased thereby.

4thly.—That one ton of cut hay, barley, &c., and athree-horse team to carry the same, and a portion of theequipments of the party, from York to Mr Smith's station, besupplied; the forage being required for the consumption of thehorses en route to that station.

This seems very necessary, as the party and horses will bedetained a few days on the road from York to Mr Smith's station,and only after leaving that station will it become possible tokeep the horses on tether.

The Secretary of the York Agricultural Society.

April 17.—I this day addressedthe following letter to the Secretary of the York AgriculturalSociety.

Sir,—Having, through thekindness of Mr Barlee, been favoured with a copy of resolutionspassed at a meeting of your Society on the 14th instant, I havethe honor to address myself directly to you, very briefly, as theearly departure of the mail leaves me little time, on a fewpoints of great importance to the contemplated exploring, party,of which you have done me the honor to approve of the commandbeing conferred on me.

1st.—The equipment contributed by the ColonialGovernment at Fremantle and Perth will be ready for delivery atthe Police Barracks, at Perth, at 4 p.m. of Saturday, the 25thinstant, it being found impracticable to get it ready by theearlier date first proposed.

2nd.—I have amended the list of equipments for the basisof an absence of 120 days instead of 75 days, as at firstproposed, but retaining still the assumption that the party willconsist of 5 members only.

If the York Agricultural Society still deem it essential thatthe party shall consist of 6 members, it will be incumbent on itto select another person to join it, and to increase theircontribution of provisions, &c., proportionally.

My own opinion, which is concurred in by most experiencedpersons whom I have had an opportunity of consulting on thesubject, is that a party of 5 men will be sufficient forprotection against the natives, and is therefore absolutelypreferable to a larger party.

I propose to be in York by mid-day of Wednesday, the 29thinstant, which, if the horses and provisions be all delivered bythat day, will enable the party to leave York on the Mondayfollowing, and to leave Mr Smith's station on the Saturdayfollowing, if fortunately blunders and accidents be avoided.

P.S.—In the estimate of the quantity of pork, I haveassumed the weight to be taken, after the extraction of everybone, and its being thoroughly dried. To the thorough drying ofit I attach great importance.

By means of the above, and other letters which it does notappear necessary to quote, of further inter views with Mr Barlee,to whose prompt and zealous efforts to meet and remove allobstacles to the realization of the expedition I feel muchindebted, and by the active exertions of the Storekeeper of theConvict Establishment in pressing forward the preparation of theequipment of the expedition, the latter was despatched to Perthon the 26th of April, and at 6 a.m. on the morning of the 28th Iwas enabled to leave Fremantle, (my official duties beingtransferred to Mr Duval, the Deputy Superintendent of the ConvictEstablishment,) and to proceed to York, where my assistance wasrequisite to complete the organization and equipment of theparty; there fore, having said adieu to Mr Duval and many of theofficers of the Convict Establishment, who had assembled to seeme start, and having had the pleasure of hearing their manyhearty good wishes for our success and safe return, myself andthe colonial prisoner Frank Hall started for Perth, each ridingone of the two horses which I intended to take with me on theexpedition.

Arrived at Perth, and having taken breakfast at the house ofmy kind friend Lieut-Colonel Bruce, I waited on Mr Barlee toreceive any final instructions which he might have to give me,and to thank him for the courtesy, confidence in me, andreadiness to remove every difficulty which has arisen in thedevelopment of the plan of the expedition, which he has shown.Thence I proceeded to the Survey Office, where theSurveyor-General, Mr Roe, delivered to me the chronometer for theuse of the expedition, with much useful advice and informationtouching the conduct of the same, and with many kind wishes forits success, and our safety in it. Proceeding then to the PoliceOffice, I, with Mr Hogan, the Superintendent of Police, made thefinal arrangements as to the pay and travelling expenses ofmounted constable Thomas Edwards, and of the native Kowitch,namely, that the former would draw his regular police pay duringthe term occupied by the expedition, and a travelling allowanceof three shillings per day until the departure of the party fromYork; and that the latter would be placed on the list of nativeconstables, drawing pay at the rate of 50s per month, out ofwhich 10s per month was to be advanced, from time to time, to hiswife.

Leaving police constable Edwards, now formally transferred tothe staff of the expedition, with orders to accompany to Yorkthat portion of the stores and equipment of the expedition whichhad been provided by the Colonial Government, and which was thencollected in the store of the Police Department, awaiting thearrival of the settlers' dray, by which it was to be conveyed tothat town, and to pick up on the road the horse which Mr Brockmanhad offered for the use of the expedition, myself and Frank Hallleft Perth in the early part of the afternoon, and on the eveningof the following day (April 29) reached the farm of my old friendMr S. E. Burges, one of the principal supporters of the projectedexploring party.

April 30.—In the forenoon MrBurges and myself rode into York for the purpose of attending ameeting of the Exploration Committee of the York AgriculturalSociety, when such progress in the development of the plans andequipment was made as gave me hope that the party would beenabled to start from York on the 7th of May.

The heavy rain which fell yesterday and the last two nightshas removed any apprehension which I may have previouslyentertained that the date selected for the departure of theexpedition from York might prove too early in the season, andthat obstacles and delay might be encountered in the earlyprogress of the expedition therefrom.

May 2.—Attended another meetingof the Exploration Committee, when further detail-arrangementswere discussed and settled. At 11 a.m., the Government portion ofthe stores and equipment arrived from Perth, in the dray of MrNairn, and under the escort of constable Edwards.

May 3.—In the Divine Service ofthe Church his morning Archdeacon Brown offered a prayer forGod's protection of our party during the contemplatedexploration, and subsequently in his sermon very kindly referredto it, alleging its claim to be viewed as an undertaking of greatpublic importance and expressing a fervent hope that theobligation of keeping holy the Sabbath, and of daily prayer,would not be forgotten by us,—a sentiment to which Icordially responded, and I sincerely intend to act up to theprinciple which he inculcated to the utmost of my power.

May 4—Attended a farewelldinner, very kindly given at Craig's Hotel, in our honor, and asevidence of their friendly interest in our success, by theprincipal supporters of, and contributors to, the expedition;Captain Newland, R.N., Comptroller-General of Convicts, whoarrived at York yesterday, being also one of the invited guests.It proved a very pleasant party, gratifying to myself as anevidence of the kind and friendly feeling of those who were, manyyears since, my brother settlers of the York district, and notproceeding from, or attesting my unreasonable confidence in, ourexpedition being crowned with successful results.

As it appears unnecessary to recite in detail the successivesteps of the progress of the completion of the organisation andequipment of the party, it will suffice to record that, by theprompt and untiring efforts of the Secretary of the YorkAgricultural Society, of the members of the ExplorationCommittee, of the Government Resident of York, L. Bayly, Esq.,and, in fact, of almost every one who had it in his power to aidus, and by much hard work on the part of all the members of oursmall party; and having, on the morning of the 6th instant,despatched a heavy dray-load of forage and equipment en route toMr Smith's station, with orders to leave portions of the forageat certain specified points of the track to that station, for theuse of the horses on the road, (the distance to the station being96 miles, and it being ascertained that at this season of theyear no natural food at all sufficient for our horses would befound near it), at 11 a.m. on the 7th of May, and in the presenceof a large gathering of the population of York and itsneighbourhood, of all ranks, ages and conditions, who gave usthree very hearty cheers, and many warm and gratifyingexpressions of their interest in the public objects of theexpedition and hopes for our personal safety and welfare, we wereenabled to make a final departure from the farm of Mr S. Parker,who had kindly placed his premises and establishment at ourservice during the stay of the expedition at York.

The party consists of the following, namely:—

H. M. Lefroy, Leader
Edward Robinson, second in command
Thomas Edwards, of the colonial mounted police force
Frank Hall, colonial convict
Kowitch, an aboriginal of the York district.

Of the above, Mr Robinson had accompanied me about three yearssince, when I followed the course of the Williams River, throughthe Darling Range: to the coast, in which little excursion I hadconceived a very high opinion both of his experience and energyin the bush, and of his agreeableness as a companion He is astepson of a wealthy settler of the York district, and has beennominated for the expedition by the York AgriculturalSociety.

Thomas Edwards had earned a well-established reputation as anefficient bushman and energetic police constable, by many yearsvaluable services in the mounted police force of the Yorkdistrict, and had attended Mr Hargraves, in the capacity ofconstable, in his recent inspection of the Colony, with a view toascertain the existence or otherwise of auriferous rocks init.

Frank Hall is a son of a now deceased but highly respectablesettler of this Colony, and is at present undergoing a sentenceof 15 years transportation for the crime of cattle stealing. Hiswell-known bush experience, and familiarity with the natives, andhis general cleverness and smartness, had induced me to solicitHis Excellency's permission to take him with me in the capacityof convict servant, which request His Excellency was pleased toaccede to.

The native Kowitch I had known from his childhood, he havingaccompanied Dr. Landor and myself when he was not more than 10years of age, in a exploring expedition to the south-east of theYork district, made by us in 1842, and having in fact beenbrought up principally in Mr Landor's house. Since then he hasserved many years as a native policeman and is well known to allthe settlers of the York district as an intelligent, sensible,courageous, and trustworthy native; an estimate of his characterwhich my observation and experience in this expedition has fullyconfirmed.

[III.Equipment]

The equipment, &c., of the party is best shown by thefollowing tabular form, which exhibits both the articles of theequipment and the sources from which they wereobtained:—

* N.B.—Each suit complete consists of thefollowing articles:—
1 pair trowsers, 1 riding coat, 1 inner flannel shirt, 1 outerwoollen do., 1 pair worsted stockings, 1 pair flannel drawers,and 1 pair boots.

[IV.Departure]

A large number of settlers of York and its vicinity, for themost part personal friends of my own, others warmly interested inthe objects of the Expedition, accompanied us many miles of ourfirst day's journey; in many cases rendering much requiredassistance in leading, driving, and re-adjusting the packs andgear on our 16 horses, of which some were only partially brokenin, all were new to each other, to ourselves, to their work aspack-horses, and to the new and not always well-fitting gear withwhich they were entrapped; whilst we, on our part, wereinexperienced in the proper adjusting of their gear, and the mostconvenient distribution of the very bulky and heavy burdens withwhich they started; but with their ready and vigorous assistancein each emergency during the 10 or 12 first miles of our journeythrough which they accompanied us, we got on without any disasteror delay worthy of record, and at about 8 p.m., or two hoursafter sunset, reached Ben Coolen, a gully distant from York about25 miles, at which the driver of our forage had been directed toleave one night's ration for our horses.

We were annoyed rather than surprised to find the heavilyladen cart, which was to convey to Mr Smith's station a portionof the equipment and the forage for our horses, had, in two days'journey, completed only 25 miles; but the heaviness of the load,together with the soft state of the track after the recent heavyrains, was a sufficient reason for this result; the settler whosupplied the dray, at a charge of £12 for the journey to MrSmith's station, doing much more than he had engaged to do, byaccompanying the dray himself to assist the regular driver, andby supplying 4 horses instead of 3, as contracted for, andthroughout the journey sparing no exertions of himself or horsesto reach Mr Smith's station as speedily as possible.

The reaching our first night's camping ground so late as 8p.m., when it happened to be a particularly dark night, and thesaturated state of the ground on which we camped, due to the laterains, formed an effective but by no means agreeable introductionto our subsequent bush life and labors; but by virtue of thefatigue, both mental and bodily, which we had undergone throughthis and the seven days of our preparations at York, and cheeredby the agreeable society and ever prompt services of Mr L. Bayly,the Government Resident of York, we at length got over the noteasy task of unloading and unsaddling, in the dark, so many wildand frightened horses for the first time; tying them up toseparate trees, so that they could hurt neither themselves noreach other; giving them their forage, &c., many of them beingso wild and frightened that to get a nosebag secured to the headof one of these was a labor of no small difficulty, if not ofperil. All this accomplished, we found leisure to eat our supper,for which we had earned a good appetite, and soon therefore weresleeping soundly on the wet ground, not using our tents, which wewere too tired to put up.

I may here record that the first, and, as it eventuallyproved, nearly the only untoward disaster of our Expedition,occurred this morning, involving the loss of one of the twohorses which I had supplied for the use of the Expedition. Ithappened as follows:—

To prevent as far as possible any unavoidable delay in thestarting of the Expedition this morning, which, from theuntrained and imperfectly broken state of the horses, and fromthe hurriedness of our preparations generally, I anticipatedwould prove a somewhat troublesome and slow business, I haddirected all the new tether ropes to be attached to the horses'necks the previous evening. The mare in question was secured tothe stall, not by her tether rope, which was merely coiled roundher neck, and there made fast, but by a headstall. The stiffnessof the new rope, I suppose, galled her neck and caused her toraise her near hind leg to rub it when her near hind hoof gotentangled in the coils of the rope, so that she could notwithdraw it. She then fell back, breaking her halter, and in herefforts to release her foot, drew the coils of rope so tightlyround her neck, that, at 4 a.m. this morning, when I left thehouse of my friend Dr. McCoy, at which I had slept, and which wasdistant from her stable nearly 300 yards, for the purpose ofmaking all the preparations for our starting, I distinctly heardher violent snortings and breathings, and when I reached MrParker's yard I found her so nearly suffocated that, althoughalive at the hour of our starting from York, she died about noon.Unfortunately some of Mr Parker's men, who slept in an emptystall of the same open stable or shed (including the prisoner F.Hall, who was specially in charge of the horses,) were sooverpowered by the drugged spirits supplied from one of thepublic houses in York, which they had too freely imbibed thepreceding evening, under the excitement of our approachingdeparture, that all her snortings and struggles did not avail towake them from their heavy slumbers. This disagreeable accidentnecessitated the purchase of another horse at the eleventh hour,which however was promptly effected at the expense of theExploration Committee.

[V.Journal: May]

May 8.—Breakfasted beforesunrise; then devoted hours to re-forming the packing of many ofour packbags, and refitting the gear, particularly the pads ofthe packsaddles, which had all been attached to the staves withthe wrong end forward. About 11 a.m. we were able to proceed, andat 3 p.m. we passed the farm of Mr E. Parker, where Mr Bayly andmyself were hospitably pressed to partake of refreshment. At 6p.m. reached a gully called Nukomuming, at which we camped.

I may here mention that Mr Parker's farm, of which the nativename is Dangin, is distant from York, by the nearest track, 37miles, in a direction E. 1½ S. It is the most remote farm in thatdirection hitherto established, and Mr Smith's sheep station(Narimbeen, the Mt. Emu of Roe and Moore's track) distant from itabout 64 miles by the existing track, on an east bearing, is theonly sheep station hitherto formed to the east of the meridian ofDangin, say longitude 117 d. 15 m. E., with the exception of thestation belonging to Mr Parker at Mount Stirling. Our travellingdistance to-day has been 18 miles.

May 9.—Having devoted aboutthree more hours this morning to further improvements of ourpacking, and to better adjustments of the innumerable traps,cords, &c., which secure them, and which both want of timeand unceasing interruptions prevented our effecting at York, weagain started about 10 a.m., and proceeding without accident ordelay about 3 p.m. reached Emu Gully (native name Ulonning).Travelling distance 16 miles. About midway in this day's journeywe reached the western side of a chain of very shallow lakes, orsandpans, at the present season of the year perfectly dry, but inthe winter receiving the drainage of an extensive tract ofcountry to the north and east of Mount Stirling, which it passeson the west side, and hence keeping a S.S.W. course, it reachesthe east branch of the Avon about 10 miles above the JurakinPool, or about 40 miles from York, direct distance on a S.S.E.bearing. These lakes overflow from one to another only in a verywet winter, like that of last year; and their overflow then hascaused all the parts of the Avon to be more or less brackishthroughout the past summer; the overflow carrying with it intothe Avon the salt accumulated in the beds of these lakes duringthe last 10 or 12 preceding years, in which no overflow has takenplace. I may further mention that any observations duringsubsequent parts of this journey convince me that the district,very imperfectly, as above shown, drained by this chain ofshallow winter lakes, extends little, if at all, to the eastwardof the meridian of 118 d. E., which south of the parallel of 23d. S. may probably be considered as the extreme eastern limit ofthe country having any drainage whatever towards the westerncoast; or, as appears most probable in the present state of ourknowledge of it, having a drainage into the ocean at all.

The flat or wide valley which contains these lakes has a widthof 3 or 4 miles, and its inclination in the direction of drainagemust be very slight, since, although last winter a stream ofwater of a depth of about 3 feet occupied its whole width, few orno channels connecting one lake with another have been cut in it,but the water flowed in a gentle stream, occupying nearly thewhole width of the valley.

The small rounded hills eastward of this chain of lakes, aregenerally capped with a thin stratum of in indurated argillaceousconglomerate, which contains a small quantity of iron in angularmasses, and of a volume sometimes approaching to that of a smallpea. These specks of iron, on fracture, show a very brightsurface.

The present thickness of this rock is seldom so great as 15feet, and its edges always bear an appearance of having beenexposed to the surges and ripples of a shoal sea; the hills also,which this rock now caps, have always a well-rounded form.

May 10.—With much regret I foundmyself under a strong economic pressure to travel this, the firstSunday of our journey.

The case is as follows:—We are still distant from MrSmith's station more than 40 miles. I must remain at Mr Smith'sstation one whole day, if not more; both to rest the horses, toget observations for our position, and to repack the bags, so asto take into them all that portion of our provisions namely,about 1,100 lbs weight, which is being brought up in the foragedray; but half the forage is already consumed by the 16 horses ofthe Expedition, and Mr Bayly's two in addition; it is well knownthat there is no bush feed for horses between this and MrSmith's, and probably the sheep will have destroyed all the feednear Mr Smith's station; so that, in fact, we must depend on ourhay and corn, carried from York, until after leaving the latterplace.

Accordingly, starting at 9 a.m., we travelled on with littleinterruption from packs being displaced &c., and, with a veryshort halt about 1 p.m. to eat a biscuit each, until 7 p.m., whenwe reached Wilyelling, a pretty open grassy plain of about 100acres extent, and containing a fine spring of good water.Travelling distance 29 miles. We were all very tired at the endof this long and very uninteresting day's journey.

Long after midnight Grindal, with the dray and 5 horses, (forto enable him to reach Smith's station as speedily as possible, Ihad lent him to assist his team, one and that the best of ourpack-horses, and a native, to point out the imperfectly markedtrack), arrived, showing a zeal for our service, for which Ireward him and his driver with a portion of one a the bottles ofbrandy which Mr Craig, mine host of the Castle Hotel at York, hadpresented to the Expedition. Both they and their horses were muchfatigued, as will be readily supposed by any one who has triedthe experiment of driving five horses in a line, with a heavilyladen dray, along a scarcely marked track, passing oversand-plains, gullies, dead timber, and many other obstacles, for30 miles at a stretch.

Towards the latter part of this day's journey we experiencedmuch trouble in keeping the horses which were both very tired andvery hungry, from straying off the track to feed, and, from lyingdown and rolling in their packs, but after dark, when we expectedmost difficulty in this respect, the horses kept to the track,and we got in without accident.

It is desirable to mention that I should not have made so longa journey as 30 miles this day, if water for ourselves and horsescould have been obtained at a less distance.

May 11.—At 9 a.m. started onthis our last day's journey to Mr Smith's station.

After accompanying the party about 10 miles of the route, MrBayly and myself rode on alone to select a convenient campingground in the vicinity of the station prior to the arrival of therest of the party.

At 2 p.m. we reached the station, and were hospitably receivedby the man in charge (William Harris), who immediately preparedsome mutton chops for us, which we ate with a good relish, for Ifind that the breakfasting at daylight, followed by two hours'hard work in catching, saddling, and loading the horses, and thenby 5 hours' riding, gives me a real genuine and unmistakeableappetite for a midday dinner—such as many a poor fellowtied to a desk all day, knows neither the sense of, nor the soundhealthful satisfaction which attends and follows the appeasementof it with any plain wholesome food.

We found in the immediate vicinity of the house, which isclose to a bare rock, of which the native name is Comining, anddistant from the large bald rock Narimbeen, which gives name tothe station, about 3 miles, the latter bearing from the formerabout E. by S., plenty of short young grass, the best we had seensince leaving York, and water in three shallow wells in the fieldadjoining the house. Here the remainder of the party, whicharrived about 3 p.m. encamped.

In the afternoon I ascended the rock of Comining, and got anative of the place, whose name is Mungup, and who hasvolunteered to accompany the party in our future journey, topoint out the bearings of York and Dangin, which I found to be W.by N. and W. ½ S. respectively, by compass.

The distance of Dangin from this station by the existing trackis 61 or 62 miles, and that of Dangin from York, by the nearesttrack, 37 miles. In both cases the track is very direct.

Having conducted the reader to this point, which is atpresent, by some 40 miles, the most distant sheep-station to theeastward of the Avon Valley, I shall submit some briefobservations on the physical features, and particularly thegeological structure, of the country intervening between thewestern face of the Darling Range, or the meridian of 116 d. 10m. and that of 118 d. east longitude, and the parallels of 30 d.and 33d. south latitude, as the geological structure of theDarling Range is so intimately connected with that of the countryeastward of the Avon, at least as far as the meridian of 118 d.E., that the geology of the latter district, which alone seemsstrictly to come within the scope of this Journal, cannot befully discussed without constant reference to that of the DarlingRange and of the Avon Valley.

First as to geological structure.

The geological basis of the whole of this country, and of thatstretching at least 4 degrees further eastward, as our subsequentjourney enabled us to ascertain, is primitive granite, rupturedor fissured only in a few lines, which will be described below;nowhere tilted or upheaved, except perhaps very slightly towardsthe western face of the Darling Range; nowhere intersected byeruptive rocks, unless dykes of quartz come within thatdefinition; very thinly covered with sedimentary rocks, of whichthe total mean thickness probably does not exceed 100 feet.

This vast mass of the primitive granitic crust of the earthhas been fractured as follows, namely,—

First and principally along the line of the western face ofthe Darling Range, when the eastern side or lip of the fracturedmass was slightly lifted, but without tilting, so as to form thebarren and elevated tract of country which we call the DarlingRange, having a mean elevation of 1200 or 1400 feet above thelevel of the sea; and at the same epoch probably the western sidesunk by a vertical space about equal to that through which theeastern side was elevated.

Secondly, by numerous fractures subordinate and more or lessperpendicular to the line of the former, and extending throughthe upheaved mass to lineal distances of as much as 100 miles, inthe cases of the gorges and valleys of the Avon, the Moore, theMurray, and their tributaries respectively; and by many smallergorges in the western face of the Range, which for the most partnow possess small streams of permanent water.

Through these lines of fracture no eruptive rock such asbasalt, serpentine, or the eruptive granites, has come to thesurface; the superior quality of soil, now found in manylocalities of the valleys which these lines of fissures haveformed, being due solely to its derivation, in such cases, from aportion of the primitive granite originally more deeply beddedthan that from the decomposition of which the soil, in other andgenerally higher localities, has been derived, which deeplybedded granite, by the fractures, accompanied, as they probablywere, by a very slight elevation, has been brought to thesurface.

The upper portions of all primitive granites, as originallydeposited or consolidated from fusion, containing the mineralelements of agricultural fertility only in very smallproportions, but the lower portions, under like conditions,generally containing them largely, it is only along lines of deepfracture of the primitive granite, and near the outlets ofdrainage from these lines, that granite soils of greatagricultural fertility are likely to be found, because it isalong such lines only that granite of an original deep bedding,that is of great specific gravity and abounding in the mineralelements of agricultural fertility, will have supplied thematerials of the soil.

No other portion of the earth's surface perhaps possesses adistrict so extensive as the one under review, in which thedistribution of agricultural fertility can be so directly andcertainly traced to the igneous rocks from which its soil hasbeen derived.

Secondly, as to the physical features of its surface.

In the Darling Range the numerous subordinate features of thegranitic crust, which attended the great meridional fracture andsubsequent slight elevation which in fact formed the range, arenow exhibited in numerous gorges and valleys, of a which manypossess a steepness of side and a massiveness of exposed granitewhich impart a certain grandeur and romantic wildness to them,but they are generally very deficient in agriculturalfertility—a fact which probably is due to the shortness ofthe lines of fracture, which would tend to prevent the exposureof any deeply-bedded granite to the surface.

As the above-described lines of fracture extend only veryshort distances eastward of the Avon Valley, namely, along thelower portions of the courses of the Toodyay, the Salt River, theMackie, the Dale, &c., the country eastward of the Avon, tothe eastern limit of its drainage basin, which as already stated,nearly coincides with the meridian of 118 d. 30 m., E., is veryflat, having a general slope of perhaps 2 feet per mile towardsthe south-west.

The few low and generally well-rounded hills, and short rangesof such like hills, scattered over this country, are due tointumescencies of the primitive granite of a purely topicalcharacter, and referable, I believe, to forces acting during theoriginal consolidation of the crust, which will be described in asubsequent part of this Journal.

These low hills are divided from each other by wide shallowvalleys, of which, some appear to possess no outlet ofdrainage.

Partially metamorphosed schists and ferruginous conglomerateshave a much greater extension and thickness in the Darling Rangethan to the east of the Avon Valley.

On the other hand, a fine-grained hard white sandstone, whichat the extreme east of the country subsequently explored by us,gradually passes into a very hard marl, immediately underlies thered surface soils of the entire district eastward of the Avon,filling up the cavities of the granitic crust. This rock I havenot found in the Darling Range.

In the portion of this country which lies between the AvonValley and a line parallel to it, but distant from it 40 miles tothe east, here intumescences of the granite are comparativelyrare, its intumescences being for the most part covered with avery thin coating of soil, always poor and silicious, but betweenthe meridians of Mount Stirling and that of Mr Smith's stationnumerous and generally most massive projections of bare rockimpart a very peculiar and striking physiognomy to the country,and, probably from having been more deeply worn down than thoseto the westward of them, have given a somewhat better, thoughnevertheless still poor and silicious soil to the adjacentcountry.

Taking the country intervening between the Avon Valley and themeridian of Mr Smith's station 118 d. E., as one whole, foreconomical purposes I should classify its surface as follows,namely:—

1st. A light silicious soil, containing a fair quantity ofdecaying vegetable matter, which has given it a somewhat darkcolour, bearing a large quantity of jam and sandalwood trees, andcovered with a poor wiry grass. Area, 30 per cent of thewhole.

2nd. Sand-plains of a very poor quartzose soil; so deficientin herbage as not to be likely to be rented from the Crown inpastoral leases. Area, 40 per cent.

3rd. Lake bottoms generally of white sand, but of which thesandy floors are in one or two cases colored red. Area, 1 percent.

4th. Stiff brownish yellow colored clays, generally bearinglarge quantities of well-grown woorock morrel, and flurted[sic] gum trees, but of so barren a nature that probablythey will remain, uncultivated until a rural population ofconsiderable density shall be established in this colony. Area,28 per cent.

5th. Surfaces of bare rock. Area, 1 per cent.

Of the above-described classes of soils the only one which canbe considered to possess any value for present purposes is thatfirst described; all of which I think is likely to be embraced inpastoral leases in the course of a few years.

In the last 3 or 4 miles of the track to Mr Smith's station weobserved a great improvement in the soil and grasses of thecountry, in fact, from what I observed of Mr Smith's run, both onthis occasion and subsequently on our return to it, I am inclinedto estimate its agricultural and pastoral capacities as quiteequal to those of the average of the grants in the York orToodyay districts.

From comparing notes with Harris the hut keeper here, and frommy observation of the state of the grass, and of the watercontained in the rocks and gullies here, I infer that much morerain has fallen in this neighbourhood during the months of Marchand April than in the York district.

As we have completed the 98 miles of the track from York tothis point in 4½ days travelling, I think we have made verysatisfactory progress, considering the untrained and wild stateof many of our horses at starting, our own inexperience in thisbusiness, and the newness and imperfect finish and fitting ofmuch cf our gear, which necessitates very frequent readjustmentsof packs and loads in the progress of each day's journey.

May 12.—All the party, withexception of myself, have been very fully occupied the whole ofthis day, in repacking and registering the contents of everybag—an operation which has been immediately necessitated byour having to distribute among our 16 horses an additional burdenof 1100 lbs. weight of flour and pork, which Grindall's cart hasbrought us so far, and which will increase their loads up tonearly 200 lbs. each horse.

By Mr Bayly having very kindly undertaken to assist in andsuperintend the above operation, I have been enabled to writesundry letters which the pressing occupations of the last twomonths in connection with the organization of this party, andwith the departure of my wife and of four of our children toEngland, for which she sailed only on the day before I finallyleft Fremantle, namely, the 25th ultimo, had compelled me todefer till the last moment.

With Harris' aid I succeeded in engaging a native of thislocality, whose name is Muncup, to accompany us as guide for somefew days' journey, which I hope will enable us to avoid many ofthe thickets, the great anticipatory obstacle to our futureprogress, and which are generally supposed to attain a maximumdevelopment not far to the eastward of this meridian.

Note.—I may here observe that subsequent experience inboth our outward and homeward tracks has shown that theconceptions of the extent and impenetrability of these thicketshitherto entertained, are very exaggerated, unless it be assumedthat they have a far greater development to the north of ourtrack, than along its line—an assumption for which atpresent we possess no sufficient grounds, in our journey I thinkwe found no thicket of a width of one mile, or of a larger areathan 5 or 6 square miles, to the best of my judgment; nor did wefind our previous conceptions of the difficulty of penetratingbetter founded than our estimates of their extent.

May 13.—Sat down to breakfast atdaylight, nevertheless we could not complete our preparations fora final start until 10h.30m. a.m.; so much time is still requiredfor the catching, saddling, and loading so many horses, althoughthe kind and agreeable companion of our journey so far, Mr Bayly,and his native servant, rendered us all the assistance in theirpower; but at the hour named our party was again fairly inmotion, and having bid adieu to Mr Bayly, whose cheerful andobliging nature had endeared him to all the party, and whom as hewas about to start forthwith on his return to York, we naturallylooked on as our last link or connexion for a time with civilizedlife, and entrusted to his charge our last letters, we commencedour journey into theterra incognita of South WesternCentral Australia.

At three miles, principally through a well-grassed country, wepassed the fine bald rock of Narimbeen, which I subsequentlyascertained to be the Emu Hill of Roe and Moore's track of 1836,and of which the latitude is 32 d. 4m. S., longitude 118 d. 7m.E., and which was the farthest point eastward of York reached byMr Hargraves in his late Journey through the interior of thecolony for the investigation of the auriferous qualities of itsrocks, which I am afraid are very poor, and at 8 p.m. reachedanother large bald hill of which the native name is Kunkoming,bearing from Narimbeen about 10 miles east. Travelling distanceabout 14 miles, our naive guide having taken as around many smallthickets, which we might without much difficulty have gonethrough.

At Kumkoming we found a small quantity of good land, withexcellent grass and plenty of water.

We all walked the entire distance to-day, our riding horsescarrying a portion of the flour, brought up by Grindall's cart asfar Mr. Smith's station.

No detention arose in our journey to-day, and the horses nowwalk steadily in one track, fol lowing the leading horse, whichis led by Kowitch.

This evening I commenced the practice of reading one chapterof the Bible and repeating a few short prayers to the party,before they turn in to rest. I was glad to observe that allcheerfully and cordially approved my announced intention topursue this practice every evening; an intention which I am happyto say was realized throughout the remainder of the journey.

May 14.—From Kumkoming toTampin. Direct distance 6 miles; travelling distance 8 miles;bearing E. 30 d. S. Hour of starting 2 p.m.

The cause of our having made so late a start to-day is asfollows:— Charley, the pony supplied by Mr H. Monger forthe use of the Expedition, and a very strong wild, high-spiritedanimal, broke the tether rope with which he was left to feed lastnight, as he was too wild to be hobbled.

In order to catch him this morning, after spending a wholeforenoon in abortive attempts to effect that purpose, we had toerect a stockyard, loose and turn out again all the other horses,and then having allowed a lapse of two or three hours that hemight quietly rejoin them, we drove the whole in a mob into thestockyard, where, after exercising many precautions to preventhis escape, we at length succeeded in roping him.

May 15—Rain commenced to fell at5 a.m. and as it soon poured heavily, and showed little promiseof clearing up in the course of the day, I resolved to halt atTampin all day, there being abundant grass for the horses allround the hill which is very extensive and lofty.

Judging from the large quantity of grass-covered land which Ican see from the summit of this hill, stretching to the east andsouth, and from the quality of the soil adjacent to the hill, Ithink that a good sheep run might be formed here, of courseassuming that I saw only a small portion of the good land, whichreally exists in its vicinity.

This evening the native Tommy, who has accompanied us fromYork in the supernumerary capacity of being a friend ofKowitch's, brought in a small doe kangaroo, being the firstkangaroo shot by any of our party so far, which led us to reflectthat in our whole journey from York to this point, or nearly 130miles of travelling, the sum total of all the kangaroos seen byall the members of the party taken collectively is not more than9 or 10.

May 16.—Yesterday's heavy andcontinuous rain ceased about 9 p.m., so that at 9 a.m., thismorning we started on, and at about 4 p.m. reached another, baldhill, with a grove of mountain oaks around its base, and withfair feed around it for the horses. Travelling distance 20 miles.Direct distance 17 miles E. ½ S. The country traversed, exceptwithin a mile of Tampin, very poor; alternately sand-plains andthickets. All very tired and hungry when our day's march wasconcluded.

The country was so soft and boggy, except on the sand-plains,that the horses constantly sunk in it halfway up to their kneesand hocks; and two or three times I sank over myboots—rather high half boots. Of course this was aconsequence of yesterday's heavy rain; but at the same time itraises formidable apprehensions as to the practicability oftraversing this country in mid winter.

The native Tommy left us this morning with my full consent, asI don't think that his services are required. He took charge of aletter to Mr Bayly; and I have omitted to record that Muncupabsconded from our service, doubtless not liking the alternativeof having either to accompany us all through our intendedjourney, or deserting us at a greater distance from his owncountry, Comining, to run a proportionally greater risk of beingspeared on his way home. Our strength therefore is reduced to the5 members proper of the party.

Sunday, May 17.—I am induced tomake a short stage to-day, instead of resting through it, as Ishould prefer to do, by the following reasons:—

1st. Weather compelled us to rest all Friday. We also restedall Tuesday, to readjust and register our loads, consequently thehorses do not require rest to-day.

2nd.—A fine bald hill which I take to be Borayukkin,spoken of in terms of high commendation by Muncup for the grassaround it, is visible at a distance of 9 or 10 miles E. 25 d.N.

Accordingly, at 10 a.m., we start, and at lh. 30 m. reach thishill, at which, to our disappointment, we find only poor feed forour horses, but plenty of water. Travelling distance 10miles.

The country traversed to-day consists of an alternation ofsand-plains and thickets of many different sorts, and the soilfor the most part wretchedly poor. In fact the appearance of thecountry visible from the top of this bald hill is unpromising inthe extreme.

Both yesterday and to-day we noticed a few isolatedindividuals of a species of Mimosa, quite new to me, and an erecttree-like stem and foliation; also on the sand-plains a thinsprinkling of a true pine, or fir, of dwarf dimensions, theheight not exceeding 10 feet, but bearing very long spines. Theyappear to be as stunted and unthriving as those discovered bypolar navigators on the Arctic shores of America and Asia, butfrom physical causes, directly the reverse of those which operatethere: namely, here, intense heat and dryness of summer climate,and a sterile silicious soil; there, an intensely cold and humidclimate, combined with great richness of soil.

May 18.—Start at 7h.30m. a.m.,being the earliest start which we have yet effected, although wealways turn out at the first dawn of day, and generally havefinished breakfast before sunrise, and at 11h.30m. a.m. reach avery hemispherically-shaped bald hill, with plenty of grass aboutits base and of water in the cavities of its surface. Travellingdistance 11 miles; direct distance 9½ miles N.E. Of the countrytraversed about 4 miles of our track lay through sand-plains,small thickets, and forest-covered hill-sides, and the remaining7 miles through a rich looking, red colored alluvial flat,presenting everywhere unmistakeable indications of havingrecently been swept by a violent storm flood, which made the soilin many places very boggy.

It being too early in the day to stop, and having, in a surveyof the adjacent country from the top of this hill, discoveredanother large bald rock, at an estimated distance of about 20miles N.E., and no other rock being visible to the eastward ornorth ward, we proceed on, steering for this rock, and at about 6p.m., having travelled nearly the entire route through acontinuation of the same rich looking but wearisome andmonotonous flat, which we had traversed in the forenoon, withoutfinding a drop of water, or any fair grass, as it was gettingdark, and Horses and ourselves were nearly knocked up, we halted,and tied the horses up short to trees, without unloading them,whilst Kowitch rode one of them, in the direction which appearedmost likely to lead out of the flat, in which we knew well nowater would be found, to endeavour to find water and grass ifpossible; though I entertained little hope of his success.

At the expiration of less than one hour Kowitch returned,reporting that he had found a small patch of fine grass, butwithout water, at a distance of a mile or so out of the valley.To this we at once proceeded, reaching it about 7 p.m. nearlyexhausted, both ourselves and horses. Travelling distance fromthe hemispherical hill 16 miles; direct distance 14 miles;bearing N.E.

As we could find no water, and had carried none in our watertins, not anticipating any difficulty from want of it after therecent heavy rain at Tampin, which evidently had extended for inthis direction, we had to make our supper without tea to wash itdown. None of us however complained of a thirst, as we had alldrunk in the middle of the day at the hemispherical hill, and Islept as comfortably and soundly as usual.

May 19.—By daylight we were allup, searching for water, which the discovery over-night of ahallow gully trending towards the flat, gave us good hope of. Inless than an hour Hall and myself found a hole in the gullycontaining some gallons of muddy water, which however was quicklyconveyed into the camp, and in a process of boiling for ourbreakfast, for which we had good appetites, as from fear ofthirst we had eaten little the evening before.

Our horses, having been watered at the bald hill which wepassed in the forenoon, did not suffer from thirst, and hadabundance of excellent grass, which grew on a small clear patchof a red, sticky and crumbly soil, on a hill-side, exactlysimilar to the clear patches of fine rich soil to be found inmany localities of the Avon Valley, and which have been ascribed(as I think, very erroneously,) to a basaltic derivation, butwhich, as I do not admit the existence of basalt in thatdistrict, I ascribe to the decomposition of a deeply beddedgranite, brought to the surface in the rupturing of the graniticcrust which formed that valley.

If my theory of the production of the clear patches of richsoil in the Avon Valley be correct, it is probable that a verylimited rupturing of the crust has taken place in the vicinity ofthis patch of grass, and exposed to atmospheric action a smallmass of granite of an original deep bedding.

I may here observe that throughout our entire journey eastwardof Smith's station, this is the only patch of that very peculiarsort of soil which we observed, which affords to my mind one ofthe many indications of an unbroken crust of primitive granitewhich this country presents, and which constitutes its greatgeological peculiarity.

Start at 9.40 a.m., and at 4.30 p.m. reach another small baldhill. Travelling distance 18 miles; direct distance 16 miles.Course, north-east.

Of our track to-day, 14 miles lay through a rich, red colored,rotten looking alluvial flat, but bearing little grass. Like thattraversed on the previous days, it presented many indications ofhaving been swept by a recent storm-flood; nevertheless it wasquite destitute of surface water, having no gullies or otherchannels in which the surface water could collect and beretained.

As we did not discover this bald bill until quite close to it,and both ourselves and horses were well tired, we were wellpleased with our fortune in finding it, and in gratefulrecollection of Mr Bayly's agreeable society and kindness inaccompanying us from York to Smith's station, we all concurred ina wish to call it Mount Bayly.

The position of this bare rock is latitude longitude; and onour homeward route we learnt from the natives who thenaccompanied us, that its native name is.

From the top of Mount Bayly this morning I observed a veryremarkable bald hill, apparently of far greater size andprominence than any one which we have yet seen, and of a somewhatsquare form, with very lofty and steep sides. Its bearing fromMount Bayly is N. ½ W. by compass.

To this vast mass of rock I respectfully propose to attach thename of His Excellency Governor Hampton, who has taken a warminterest in the organization of this Expedition, and hasoverruled many difficulties which threatened to obstruct itsrealization.

Of this hill—the Mount Hampton I hope of the future mapsof this colony—I subsequently ascertained the native nameto be Boogarring. Its latitude is     ;longitude     .

As Mount Hampton bears rather to the west of north—butour object is to make both easting and northing—I selectedfor our destination to-night another and much smaller bald hill,bearing N.N.E. * from the summit of Mount Bayly.

Start at 9.30 a.m.; reach intended bald hill at 2 p.m.;travelling distance 14 miles; direct distance 13 miles.

Of the country traversed to-day about 10 miles of our tracklay through a similar rich, red colored, alluvial bottom orvalley, to that which we have travelled on many previous days.Sand plains, thickets and hill tops occupied the rest of thecountry traversed.

On the hillside today we picked up several small fragments ofgypsum, consisting of thin, colorless, translucent shiny plates,adhering face to face.

From the top of this hill the country all round appears to becovered with grass to a distance of 3 miles, and I think it maysafely be assumed that one flock of sheep may be kept to every 2bald hills eastward of Mr Smith's station, as there is much grasson many of the sand-plains, and if the rich alluvial valleybottoms be covered with grass in the spring and early summer,this estimate may be largely increased, especially as Iconfidently believe that the introduction of stock into thisdistrict will develop a growth of grass on the undoubtedly richalluvial soils of the wide valleys corresponding to their evidentfertility of soil.

The scantiness of the existing plant of grass in these valleysI attribute solely to the absence of any grass eating animals andI do not doubt that the introduction of these, particularly if itbe accompanied with a small amount of artificial drainage, willsoon develop a rich growth of grass in all the alluvial soils ofthis district.

Our horses bogged several times to-day, and it is evident thatheavier and more violent rain has fallen here lately, thanfurther to the westward, and I suspect on the same day as that onwhich it rained at Tampin, from which we are now distant nearly100 miles north-east. This fact, from which I infer that thiscountry must be nearly untraversable from bogginess in the depthof winter, has determined me make more northing, until I approachthe parallel 30d. S., as I think it probable that the winterclimate in South-western Central Australia at that parallel, andto the north of it, must be much drier than the districts nearerthe coast, and I also suspect that the country further to thenorth is more open.

I have endeavored, since leaving Mr Smith's station, to referthe distribution of the bald masses of granite to some generallines of geographical direction, such as, according to the nowreceived theories of the development of mountain systems, theywould have, if their elevation had been due to any deeply seatedelevatory forces; in which case not only, it is probable, thegranitic crust would have been ruptured, of which I could nowherediscover any satisfactory indications, but the lines of rupturewould have coincided with planes of great circles of thesphere.

However their distribution appears to be so arbitrary,generally being isolated, sometimes forming short ranges whoseaxes have every variety of bearing, their form is so rounded, thewide flat valleys which intervene between them have such anuniform level from which they (the hills) spring up to a veryuniform elevation, that it is equally difficult to ascribe theirelevation to any deeply seated elevatory forces, or to thedislocations and displacements of level, which might beincidental to numerous local rupturings of the crust, due to thevast lateral contractile force developed by the loss of heat, towhich the great fissures, now occupied by Avon and other rivervalleys, are undoubtedly attributable, were any evidences of suchsubordinate rupturings to be found on a careful examination ofthis country. But since, as I have already stated, the wholecontour of the country is at variance with the assumption of suchlocal rupturings, I must conclude that a true theory of theirelevation must refer them to other forces than those which havedetermined the elevation of mountain ranges generally.

But whatever the forces, and whatever the epoch, of elevationof these singular and magnificent masses above the generalsurface of the granitic crust of the district, may have been, thewhole contour of the country strongly suggests this proposition,namely, that, subsequently to their elevation, the ocean hascovered this country for vast ages, and that its subsequentemergence from the ocean has been due to no positive elevatoryforce of a local or topical character.

As the geological structure and the palaeontology ofSouth-western Australia generally, have hitherto been so littleinvestigated, and as I believe the geological structure of thedistrict which I am now exploring to be so intimately connectedwith, that of the Avon valley and of the Darling Range, thereader will excuse me for recording here the fact that recentlydiscovered and obtained in an argillaceous shale forming thesubsoil of a field in the Dale district (the Dale being atributary of the Avon, and traversing a strongly defined fissureof the granite springing from the grand fissure occupied by theAvon valley,) the shale apparently having a bedding conformableto the slope of the granitic sides of the valley, several wellpreserved fossil specimens of a long, jointed seaweed, whichprobably had grownin situ when the fissures now occupiedby the Avon valley and its tributaries formed an arm of the sea;at which epoch, assuming, as there are just reasons for doing,that the country eastward of 118d. E., and the Avon district hadthe same relative levels then as now, the former must have beencovered with a sea, in the chronic shoaling of which these baldhills gradually reached the surface and formed an archipelago ofnumberless rocky islets.

As, from the character of the fossil remains above mentioned,and from other circumstances, I infer the era of the elevation ofthe Avon valley above the sea to be pliocene, on the assumptionmade in the preceding paragraph I infer that also to be the eraof the retirement of the ocean from the portion of WesternAustralia which I am now exploring.

I hope the reader will not take it amiss if I endeavor tocompensate him for wading through these misty speculations as tothe works of nature in ages so inconceivably remote in the past,by submitting a suggestion of a very practical nature anproximate application, with reference to the disposal of thesealluvial bottoms to future agricultural settlers, for whose usethey appear to be so peculiarly adapted.

My suggestion is as follows, namely, that an accurate surveyought to precede the opening of the soil of any one of thesevalleys to freehold or tillage lease occupation, and that in thissurvey a strip of at least 2 chains in width, following the axisof the valley, be marked out as a reserve for the followingpurposes of imperative local necessity or utility to its futureoccupants, namely, a site for an arterial drain and main districtroad.

Artificial arterial drainage will be urgently required in mostor all of these valleys, whenever they shall be occupied by anagricultural population, as they are either entirely destitute ofnatural surface drain age, or that natural drainage is soimperfect as only to operate once in 10 or 12 years, when thechain of lakes passing Mount Stirling (Munlyeen) is convertedinto a stream of 3 or 4 miles in width, and of a depth of about 3feet, flowing at a gentle velocity into the Avon, about 35 mileshigher up the valley than York.

It is evident that not one-millionth part of the mean annualrainfall of this country can be discharged into the ocean by thenatural drainage of the surface; the remainder must be evaporatedby the summer sun, under, we assume, the existence of subtelluricchannels of drainage into the ocean along the face of the granitecrust.

Many specimens of gypsum were picked up to-day, and onespecimen of a shale, approaching in texture to a soft slate, of agrey color.

We also noticed to-day, for the first time, many of masses ofthe solid rock cropping out on hill-sides and valley bottoms,instead of, as previously, at the summits of the hills. I thinkthis is evidence of the extreme thinness of the sedimentary rockswhich here cover the granite.

May 21.—Partly in consequence ofthe indications of a wet day, which the morning presented, andpartly to recruit our horses on the excellent feed which aboundsabout this rock, I have resolved to rest here to-day.

Mr Robinson and Kowitch, immediately after our earlybreakfast, which is generally concluded by sunrise, took theirguns in search of game, and at noon returned with one emu, whichKowitch had shot on Mount Hampton, which bears from us W. by N.,distance 3 miles.

With reference to the pastoral capacity of the country,eastward and northward of Mr Smith's station, as far as MountHampton, I should estimate it as equal to feed 1000 sheep per25,000 acres of its entire surface, a capacity which, however lowand small it may appear in the conception of English farmers, nolarge district of this Colony, yet explored, has been found topossess for its entire surface. But in this estimate I make thefollowing assumptions, namely, that

1st—The valley bottoms, which, in spite of their evidentfertility of soil, now carry only a very thin plant of grass,will from the depasturing of this soon be covered with a thickgrass suited to their soil.

2nd—That the grass elsewhere, which is generally coarse,and intermixed with the withered leaves and stalks of two orthree years' growth, will improve much in quality from closecropping.

May 22.—Started at 9.30 a.m.,and at 3 p.m. reached camping ground, where we found sufficientwater for ourselves, but not for out horses, in a hole in a thickstratum of ironstone. Travelling distance, 13½ miles. Directdistance, 12 miles N.E.½E.

Of this day's route, about 7 miles lay through rich, alluvialflat land, of a color and texture apparently, rather superior toany traversed on previous days. Of the remainder, about one-halfwas through rich ground, one half over sand-plains. On much ofthe sand plains and hilly ground was fair feed for sheep orhorses, and better grass than usual on the flat land, which Iattribute principally to the flat land being drier and apparentlybetter drained than that traversed on previous days.

The last two miles, previously to reaching the camping ground,lay through some of the best land we have yet traversed, coveredwith splendid grass, and of texture and colour very similar tothat of Grady's meadow, near York.

A small species of cedar grows very abundantly in the flatland which we traversed the last two days, sometimes in clumps,sometimes as isolated trees; and from many of the cedar clumps afew tall woorock or morrel trees project, giving these flats adiversity and beauty of arboreal scenery which is rare in thisColony.

We have passed hardly any scrub, deserving the character of athicket, to-day; and that which we have passed has been in narrowstrips, of a width seldom exceeding 100 yards.

The horses are feeding on first-rate grass, as in fact theyhave been nearly every night since leaving Smith's station;nevertheless it is evident that we are taking out of them all thework which they can well go through, although they rested allyesterday, and the distances which they travel daily do notappear large. The fact is that their loads are very heavy, nearly200lbs each, and the ground is very soft and boggy from the laterain.

I have noticed a considerable change in the color andconstitution of the granite gradually showing itself during thepast week. The color is changing from a pale grey to a paleyellow, and the quartz is being replaced by feldspar, of whichvery large crystals, generally of 2 or more inches in the edge,are very abundantly exhibited, especially in the thin dykes withwhich nearly all these masses are intersected. The crystals offeldspar also are cemented together with a very red coloredpaste.

I may here further record that on the top of the bald hill, atwhich we encamped last night, as well as on the tops of manypreviously passed, are many vast blocks of detached granite,generally of a thickness of 6 or 7 feet, always much water-worn,particularly at their under surfaces in contact with the parentrock. These I take to be the few surviving fragments of vastsheaths of granite, which at some vastly remote epoch of thehistory of our planet, in the secular progressive cooling of thegranitic crust, peeled of and no doubt simultaneously wereshattered into innumerable vast angular blocks—a theorywhich the examination of the Karkalin rock in the latter part ofthe journey has strongly confirmed in my mind.

May 23.—Although we sat down tobreakfast at 5.30 a.m., we did not effect a start before 8.30a.m., so long a time does it still take to collect, saddle, andload so many horses. At 4.15 p.m. we reached a fair campingground, rather to our surprise, as we did not observe anyindications of rock, and its ever attend ant, grass and water,until we were within 100 yards of them. Travelling distance 22miles; direct distance 19 miles E. ½ N.

Both ourselves and horses were well tired when we got in; for22 miles through a pathless bush, in great part thickly coveredwith dead wood, is a day's work sufficient to fatigue both manand horse, and I may say that we have providentially, if I may sowithout presumption, been directed to water and grass, quite latein the day, three times during the past week, when we allexpected to have to spend the night without either.

The country traversed has been less boggy today in thanheretofore; nevertheless it has every appearance of having beenswept by the same storm of rain which detained us at Tampin onthe 15th instant.

About 3 miles of our route lay through the same rich alluvialflats as traversed on previous days: about 12 miles through opensand-plains, the remainder over hills and hill-sides, more orless covered with brushwood and belts of thicket; the latterhowever being not nearly so thick and difficult of passagethrough as those further to the westward, and I suspect that wehave now left behind the worst of these. If so, ourpreconceptions as to the difficulty of traversing them were veryexaggerated.

As a brief description of the several varieties of thicketwhich this country presents may not be uninteresting to thecolonial reader, I will now submit the following classificationand description of all the varieties which we have yetobserved.

1st.—Tammar, so named from a species of small kangaroowhich abound in them, and which at certain seasons of the yearthe natives hunt in combination—a principle of actionrarely adopted by them.

This thicket is constituted solely of a dwarf species ofeucalyptus, growing in fine rods from underground stems, to anuniform height of 15 or 20 feet; like copses of ash or hazelwoodin England.

This thicket grows always on high land, of a stiff, poornature; and the rods would probably be of great service forhurdle-making, and other purposes of rural economy.

The rods are so thickly set on the ground that the nativescannot employ their dogs to hunt the Tammars, consequently thecombined action above spoken of.

2nd.—Marlock. This is constituted solely of another andstill smaller dwarf species of eucalyptus than the former, as itseldom attains a height seeding 6 or 7 feet. Its site isgenerally the lower at of a hill-side, on a damp and sandy soil.It is much more difficult of penetration than Tam mar.

3rd.—Spearwood. Site, valley bottoms and lower parts ofhill-sides; soil, always wet, but of clay or sandindifferently.

4th.—Jam. A dwarf species; branching from near theground. Sites, a sandy, low, and wet soil.

5th.—Cedar. A dwarf species; branching from near theground; frequently much intermixed with the dwarf jam. Site,sandy ground, generally wet.

6th.—Tea-tree. A dwarf species; site, clayey ground, butwith such slope as to prevent the water from stagnating onit.

As to difficulty of penetration, I think the cedar andspearwood the worst; nevertheless in our line of route none ofthem approached in this respect to what we had anticipated. Infact, I think they can scarcely be considered to present aformidable obstacle to an exploring party, much less to thetraversing the country by settlers' drays, stock, &c., and asto extent, we observed none that appeared to have a length ofmore than 7 or 8 miles.

This is the first bright sunshiny day which we have had sinceleaving Mr Smith's station, but the cloudy mild weatherpreviously experienced, is more suitable to our purpose.

Sunday, May 24.—In the forenoonMr Robinson and Kowitch go out with guns to look for game; andwith spyglass and compass to try to discover another bald hilleastward or northward of us, to which we may steer to-morrow.Edwards inspects and fresh loads all the firearms, as our presentdistance from York makes this precaution necessary. I takeobservations for latitude and longitude.

In the afternoon, I read the Church Service for the day to allthe party.

Robinson and Kowitch returned without success, both as to gameand the discovery of more bald hills. We have seen neitherkangaroo nor emu since leaving Mount Hampton, and it is evidentthat this country is nearly, if not quite, destitute of thelarger species of game.

May 25.—Finished breakfast bydaylight, in hope to make an early start, but on collecting thehorses we found that the horse supplied by Mr Taylor had strayedback along our track, he being one of which we did not hobbleyesterday, as we thought that they would not leave the rest,which were hobbled.

This fact being, I despatched Messrs. Robinson and Edwards insearch of him.

In the afternoon Kowitch and myself walked to a conspicuoushill capped with a thick bed of ironstone, distant about 4½ mileseast, or, as it proved, on inspection, to be, a very fine-grainedcrystalline schist, strongly impregnated with iron.

In the crest of the gorge which intervenes between this andthe adjacent hill to the north, a fine dyke of quartz, at least10 feet wide, broke through the surface, which vein, whereexposed, was evidently much waterworn.

In this walk I observed another gnow's nest, which bad beenfreshly scratched out this morning, as those which we havepreviously seen mostly have been, for use next season oflaying.

I record this fact, as I think it difficult to account for,since the hen bird, which continues to use the same nest all herlife, does not commence to deposit eggs until the latter part ofSeptember or early in October, and after this scratching of thesurface of the nest in May, done, as Kowitch tells us, always bythe male bird, he appears not to revisit the nest all through thewinter.

The nests themselves consist of holes in the ground (agravelly soil is generally selected) about 2 feet deep, and ofthat diameter; which hole is filled with dry sticks, leaves,grass, &c., in which the female deposits her eggs in layers.This nest is enclosed in a ring of the excavated soil of 5 or 6feet in diameter and of a thickness of 18 or 20 inches.

From the ironstone capped hill which we visited thisafternoon, we had the pleasure of discovering, with the aid of atelescope, the beds of 4 lakes, stretching from north-east tosouth-east, and of which one certainly contains water. To this Ishall remove our camp to-morrow.

There is an unusually large native well or water hole, stillfull nearly to the fop, at a distance of of one hundred yardsfrom our camp.

May 26.—Messrs. Robinson andEdwards did not make their appearance last night. At 11 a.m.despatched Hall and Kowitch with 12 horses to the lake discoveredby us yesterday; whilst I remain here, awaiting the arrival ofRobinson, Edwards, and the missing horse.

At about 2 p.m. Robinson and Edwards arrive having overtakenthe missing horse at the bald hill at which we encamped on Fridayevening; in fact at two days' journey from our present camp.After they had rested about an hour, we followed Hall and Kowitchto the lakes discovered yesterday, where we encamped on poorfeed. Direct distance 6 miles due east.

From the top of the red-colored hill above mentioned to thenearest lake is about 3 miles, of a apparently rich red wheatsoil, but at present carrying little grass, which I attributeboth to want of drainage and to the absence of any grass eatingfauna.

May 27.—In consequence of thepoor feed the horses strayed so much last night that all of themwere not got in before noon. Started at 0.30 p.m., and reachedour camping ground by the side of a small lake of muddy freshwater, but again with poor feed around, at 3.30 p.m. Directdistance 7 miles N.N.E.

Our route to-day has been near the margin of a chain of lakes,all of which now contain a little water, but not of a greaterdepth than 2 or 3 inches.

This chain of lakes, so far as we can judge at present,appears to trend from the N.E., which appears also to be thedirection from which the country has a slight slope; and Isuspect that this chain of lakes must be a line of drainage fromthe interior, if they ever overflow from one into another. Ofwhich however we could discover no indication.

The width of the valley in which they are placed varies from 3to 5 miles, of which width perhaps four-fifths are now occupiedby samphire flats, a few inches above the level of the presentwater; but the valley is so flat that a maximum depth of 2 feetof water in the lakes would cover the whole valley to a width of4 or 5 miles.

The hills slope into this valley with such a gentle descent,that their sides have no deeply-cut gullies, and in fact mostimperfectly drained.

Their soil is either loam, clay or sand, of a rich red color,and much apparent mellowness and fertility, and I ascribe thedeficiency of grass on them solely to the want of drainage and ofa grass-eating fauna. I have no doubt that on the introduction ofsheep, grass will rapidly spread over them.

The samphire flats, which now contain a good deal of shortgrass, I believe will constitute very good runs for sheep.

We have seen a very few ducks on these lakes, and they weretoo wild to allow us to get near them.

Altogether I am very strongly impressed with the opinion thatnature has here supplied the elements of agricultural wealth witha most liberal hand, but these are attended with such conditions,climatic and hypsometric, as that science, capital, and labor,must be applied on a huge scale before she will surrender to theuse of civilized man the treasures of agricultural fertilitywhich she has placed here.

The subsoil of the samphire flats is everywhere a fine-grainedsand of a dull white color. This is covered with a fine redalluvial soil of 8 or 10 inches in thickness, evidently derivedfrom the adjacent hill-sides.

The stratum of fine-grained white sand, which appears tooccupy the whole width of the valley, and appears identical inconstitution with the fine-grained white sandstone whichunderlies the red surface soils throughout all this country, Ishould refer to an age when the entire surface of this portion ofAustralia was a portion of the bed of the ocean, and anterior tothe emergence from the ocean of any of the low hills with whichthe country abounds.

The whole contour of the country favors the opinion that itsrate of elevation above the ocean level was extremely slow, andwas uniform over a very large area. The white color of thissandstone rock alone is a sufficient proof that its depositionmust have preceded the elevation of any portion of this countryinto the air; for the oxidation of the iron contained in theferruginous shales and schists, of which remnants still coversome hills, and from which the red surface soils must have beenprincipally derived, must have commenced when they reached thesurface of the ocean; and the universal bedding of the red soils,both in lake bottoms and on hill-sides, on the white sandstones,shews clearly both the order of deposition and the change in thephysical conditions of the surface, which accompanied it.

Both Mr Robinson and F. Hall, of whom each possesses muchcolonial experience and knowledge of the comparative value ofsheep-runs, concur in a high opinion of the value of the runs inthis valley, as due to the abundance of samphire.

May 28.—Start at 9.30. a.m. Atabout 2 miles from camp we cross a line of lakes extending fromthe E.N.E., near its junction with what appears to be the mainline, trending from N. by W. Not being able to decide which isthe main line, we pursue a N.N.E. course between them, hoping tointersect one or the other of them again in a few miles. Wecontinue this course up a gently ascending country until 2.30.p.m., when we camp, with good feed for the horses and justsufficient water for ourselves. Travelling distance 14 miles;direct distance 13 miles N.N.E.

About 10 of the 14 miles traversed to-day have been throughmellow, red, loamy soil, with a thin plant of grass. The soil isstill boggy in places, and entirely without natural drainage Thetimber is morrel and a small species of woorock, and a smallvariety of dwoita, or York gum. Sandalwood, which attains a largesize and was very abundant as far as Smith's Station, declinesboth in size and abundance eastward of that point and here isboth small and rare.

The tops of the hills are still capped with a ferruginous andfine-grained schist, and a conglomerate apparently derived fromit.

We noticed, for the first time, a small green shrub attaininga height of about 4 feet, made of one main stem with 4 parallelrows of little branches radiating horizontally from it, and eachlittle branch similarly set with 4 parallel rows of little leavesof which the planes were co-axial with the branches—a formof foliation which was new to all our party.

May 29.—The horses wandered muchin consequence of want of water last night, but all except 2 weregot in by 9 a.m., and being loaded by 10 a.m., started on incharge of Edwards, Hall and myself; Robinson and Kowitch beingleft to track up and bring on the other two, which they effectedin the forenoon. At about  .30. p.m. very unexpectedly cameon a mass of several acres in extent of bare rock, projecting alittle above the soil, but with plenty of water in its cavitiesand good grass around it.

The development of this intumescence of granite on the lowerpart of the side of a hill, which has no exhibition of granite atits summit, affords another proof of the extreme thinness of thesedimentary; rocks which cover the granite; in fact, where wecamped last night no granite was exhibited at the surface, yet ondigging in clear and wet-looking patches of ground to get water,of which our supply was short, we always found the massive rockat a depth of 12 or 18 inches.

The granite here, and that observed for the last few days, isconstituted of remarkably large crystals, cemented by a redpaste. The crystals are nearly all parallelopipedons, and theirlongest sides have dimensions of two or more inches. They have amarked tendency to cleavage parallel to their longest sides.Their color is a dull opaque white, and I take them to befeldspar; to the gradual substitution of which mineral for quartzin the granite I attribute entirely the progressive improvementof soil which is to be observed as you travel to the east oreast-north-east from Smith's station.

In consequence of the bad feed and want of water suffered bythe horses last night, we camped at this hill. Direct distancemade, 7 miles N.N.E.

The view from the top of the hill adjacent to this rock isdreary and monotonous in the extreme. Towards the east, at adistance of about 10 miles, is a low wide and apparently flatstrip of land, which I suspect to contain another chain of lakes;but at this distance, with the trifling elevation which we cancommand, it is impossible to distinguish them. On the north ofus, and trending from W.S.W. to E.N.E., are several ranges of lowhills.

I should say that not not one of the hills or bare rocks seenduring the past week attains an elevation of 250 feet above thefloors of the lake of the adjacent lake chains.

I may here record my observation of the extra ordinarydeficiency of animal life which prevails through the country,eastward of Smith's station, traversed so far by the expedition.In a travelling distance of 155 miles, only 4 kangaroos and 3emus have been seen by the whole party taken collectively. Nonative has been seen, though on one day a fresh track of one wasseen, and on another a recently-expired camp fire of another wasseen, and their tracks of weeks or months' date have beenobserved on two other occasions. Neither gnow nor turkey has beenseen, though the presence of the former bird in the country hasbeen indicated by freshly scratching of their old nests. On themany lakes which we have passed up to the present 4 ducks onlyhave been seen. Neither cockatoo nor parrot has been seen forsome days.

This statement of facts may correct a misapprehension intowhich I think the inhabitants of great cities have a tendency tofall, namely, that uncultivated districts, in proportion as theyare destitute of human population, abound in animal life to a fargreater extent than either highly or partially cultivateddistricts; whereas the truth is that the aggregate of animallife, and more especially of the feathered tribes, increases withevery increase in the agricultural produce of a large district,to the safe keeping and growing of which produce from innumerablespecies of small vermin and insects, of which most possesswonderful powers of multiplication, and appetites speciallydirected to the consumption of particular descriptions of thevaried products of agricultural industry, each species of thefeathered tribes con tributes an invaluable and specific aid,whilst it requires as wages of its indispensable services, aportion which is equivalent only to a very small fraction of thevalue of that which it has saved from ever impending destruction,for the use of man.

Therationale of this great development of the smallerfauna, and of all species of birds, except a few, perhaps, of thelarger ones, always following the introduction of cultivationinto any country heretofore in a state of nature, appears to beas follows, namely, that, the total annual growth of vegetablematter on a given surface, in a state of nature, is only a smallfraction of that which the same surface, even under the leastskilful agriculture, produces, annually, and probably is notequal to one fiftieth part of that which the same surface, underthe action of skilful and capitalised agriculture, annuallyyields, not directly and solely for the sustentation and serviceof man, but to sustain, both in its growth and its decay, firstand principally God's "mighty hosts," the tribes in numerable ofboth the microscopic and the visible entomological systems oflife; again by the bodies of these, and by parts of the increasedannual growth of vegetable matter not destined to be primarilythe food of the insect hosts, to sustain the smaller species ofthe fauna and birds; and ultimately and principally with thebodies of the latter to sustain the larger species of birds andanimals and man, the lord and chief of all.

Thus by the introduction of cultivation into a countrypreviously left to a state of nature the total number ofindividuals of its fauna is always immensely increased, insteadof being diminished as most people in towns, I believe, withoutreflection, assume.

May 30.—Start at 9 a.m., and at2 p.m. reach camping ground—again a hill-side, where anintumescence of granite comes to the surface.

The feed for our horses here is very poor, not from defect ofgrass, but from the dried and withered state of the grass, ofwhich each tuft is composed principally of the withered stalksand leaves of two or three years' growth; and this remark isapplicable, in a greater or smaller degree, to the whole countryeastward of 118 d. E.; but later in the season, when the growthof the current winter, which is now of small volume and verywatery quality, shall have acquired full growth, I am confidentthat there will be splendid feed for horses at every hill atwhich we have encamped, and as we have travelled straight throughthe country, without a native guide, and not deviating from ourintended course to look for grass or water, I think it may safelybe predicated that in the spring and early summer this countrymay safely be traversed in any direction, with little risk offinding grass and water for every night's use: which is more thancan be said of most other extensive tracts in Australia.

May 31, (Sunday.)—The bad feed at which we encamped lastnight rendered it necessary to travel to-day, perhaps not so muchfrom an expectation of getting better feed by proceeding, at thepresent season of the year, as from the fact that, upon thiswithered innutritious grass, the horses can make short stages of10 or 11 miles per day, every day of the week, more easily thanthey can make longer journeys for a smaller number of the days ofthe week. Moreover the ground now is firm and dry, but from itsconstitution and almost level surface, I infer confidently thatit will become almost untraversible from saturation when thewinter's rains, which must now be close at hand, shall reallydescend, so that I am unwilling to lose any time at present withsuch a prospect of being constantly detained in camp, fromweather and bogginess of surface in a later part of thisjourney.

Accordingly start at 8 a.m., and at 10 a.m. to our greatgratification, from the top of an extensive sand-plain, wesuddenly came in view of the chain of lakes, which we lost sightof three days since, and at a distance of 6 or 8 miles on ourright, as I had expected to find them.

They are still trending very directly from or to E.N.E., and Ishould infer, from the width and flatness of the valley in whichthey lie, and from the levelness of the whole country, that thischain must have a great extension in an E.N.E. direction, butwhether these lakes ever overflow from one to another, and thusform a channel of drainage, and if so, whether that drainage befrom or towards the interior of the country, are points aboutwhich I cannot satisfy myself at present.

In a careful examination of every lake which we have yettraversed, I have not discovered any water-marks on trees intheir beds or margins which indicate that they have evercontained water of one foot depth, nor have I discovered anychannels of communication between adjacent lakes, nor indicationsof a general direction of current, if they ever do overflow.

At 11.40.a.m. reach camping ground. Travelling distance 11miles; direct distance 10 miles E. by N.

In the afternoon read to the party the Church Service for thisSunday.

[VI.Journal: June]

June 1.—Start at 9 a.m., reachcamping ground at 3.15. p.m. Travelling distance 19 miles; directdistance 16 miles N.E.

Our camp this evening, is fixed at another low, but ratherextensive bald rock, distant about 4 miles north-west from theaxis of the chain of lakes. It has plenty of water in thecavities of its surface, and fair feed about its margin.

Of our track this day about 5 miles lay along the westernmargin of the lake chain, and we crossed some minor chains oflakes, which appear to run into the main chain on this north-westside. Here the travelling was very heavy and fatiguing to thehorses, as they sunk in the soft deep sand above theirfetlocks.

In attempting to cross a lake-bottom of one of these minorchains, which however did not show one particle of water on itssurface, 4 or 5 of the more heavily laden pack-horses were soonbogged, and we obliged to retrace our steps and go round it. Theremainder of our track up to the camping ground was over a ratherhilly, poor, and thick country.

The chain of lakes on this northern and western side iseverywhere bordered by a margin of samphire plains, of an averagewidth perhaps of 1½ mile, and attaining an elevation of 9 or 10feet above the present floors of the lakes, which stronglysuggests the idea that these lakes formerly were far moreextensive than they are at present.

In this part of the valley, I should say that a maximum depthof 5 feet of water in the lakes would inundate the adjacentcountry to a width of 5 miles.

Most of our horses are very tired this evening, and it isplain that most of them are doing as much work as they can getthrough without exhaustion.

The great difficulty which I now anticipate in the futureprogress of the Expedition is the necessarily boggy nature of thecountry, if and whenever any heavy rains fall. These lake-chainswill then probably be impassable, and I must take the alternativeof going to the north to get into a dry winter climate, or to thesouth, to reach a hillier country, which I suspect backs theshores of the Australian Bight.

June 2.—Start at 9.45 a.m., andat 1.30 p.m. reached another extensive but not elevated bald rockon the side of a hill about 3 miles from the western margin ofthe lakes. Here again we find plenty of withered grass and water.Our horses are very tired, although we have travelled only 12miles. Direct distance 11 miles, E.N.E.

The lake valley continues to trend N.E., carrying a widemargin of samphire flats.

The bald hills are again increasing in number, thoughdiminished as to elevation and horizontal section, and now,instead of projecting from the hill tops, as they do universallyfurther to the westward, they are more frequently found on thesides of hills, and are generally so low as not to be visiblethrough the bush until they are very closely approached.

This bald hill, and in fact several which we have passed inthe last few days, is cut in many directions by dykes of acoarse-grained feldspathic protogene, composed principally ofvery large crystals of feldspar, of masses varying from 10 to 20cubic inches, and of smaller crystals of talc; and on the flanksof the hill are fragments of a talcose schist.

Of the 12 miles traversed to-day, at least 11 lay through asplendid grassy country, superior as to soil to any land of theYork district, for either wheat or grass, albeit that grass atthis present be so withered as to afford little nourishment toour horses; but we all agreed that when once the dead grass offormer summers shall be burnt or trodden to pieces by sheep, thesurface will soon be covered with a sward of grass surpassinganything now to be seen in any other district of this colony.

On the southern and eastern side of this valley of lakes, thebald rocks, or, more correctly speaking, the bare rock, stillshows itself at the summit of many of the hills, and possibly itmay be found that these rocks stretch to the vicinity of thewestern shores of the Australian Bight, and will thus afford tothe future occupants of this country easy access to thesea-side.

Kowitch and myself again to-day carefully examined severallakes, and the banks which divide one from another, to ascertainif possible the direction of the stream in cases of overflow, andalso whether an overflow of one into another ever does in facttake place. The result was that we were satisfied that nooverflow has taken place for many years back probably not forcenturies past, and that the water for many winters past hasnever attained a depth of 2 feet.

In fact I believe the valleys of these lakes to be as nearlyhorizontal as possible; that they now have no ultimate outletsinto the ocean, but reticulate into each other, at pointsinnumerable over a vast portion of South-Western CentralAustralia.

We have lately noticed a fine bushy species of Cyprus,scattered in separate trees, over both hill-sides and thealluvial bottoms, and contributing, with their light bright greencolor, to give a very agreeable relief to the sombre monotony ofthe dark green foliage of nearly all other species of theindigenous arboretum, of this country; although its forestscenery is far more picturesque and pleasing than of any otherdistrict of this colony which I have ever visited, from the factof the trees growing much in clumps, and that the clumps of thelarger timber, such as morrel and woorock, are generally set inan under-growth of a cedar, which, attaining a height of about 20feet, conceals their butts, and gives an open and variedappearance to the country.

We passed to-day, for the first time, several elegant smalltrees of a species new to us all. These trees attain a height of12 to 20 feet; have an erect stem, horizontal branches, and theirfoliation would present an almost perfectly circular section in ahorizontal plane, and an almost perfectly conical section invertical and diaxial plane; the head bends over slightly to oneside, as if under the weight of the ovaries with which they arenow thickly covered: these ovaries grow on racemous stalks, inbunches of 6 or 8; the leaf is oval, wide towards the lower part,and of a light silvery color.

June 3.—Started at 9.30 a.m. andat 4 p.m. reached camping-ground where we had poor feed for ourhorses and no water, except some which we had carried forourselves. Travelling distance 19 miles: direct distance 15miles, NE by E. We passed no water at all, and our route layprincipally over poor rocky ground, at a distance of 4 or 5 milesfrom the lake chain.

About 11 a.m. observing a native fire at a distance of about amile from our track, I despatched to it Messrs Robinson andEdwards, and Kowitch, in order that we might get an interviewwith some natives, if possible, and thereby get information whichmight be of use to us, whilst Hall and myself proceeded on withthe horses. In about 2 hours the former overtook us again, havingfailed to find the natives, who had deserted their camp beforeour party reached it.

We are camped to-night by the side of an isolated dry lake ina barren stiff clay soil.

June 4.—As five of the horseshave strayed back along our track of yesterday during the night,owing to the bad feed and want of water, I despatched Messrs.Robinson and Edwards after them on two of our horses, and at 10a.m., with the remainder, Kowitch and myself proceeded on, insearch of a better camping ground, leaving Hall to await thereturn of Messrs. Robinson and Edwards, and guard the portion ofour stores left for the 5 absconding horses to bring on. Aftertravelling, generally through a scrubby and thicketty country,until 4 p.m., we were, somewhat unexpectedly, gratified, bycoming on another very extensive bare rock, surrounded by anextensive margin of grass; the rock, as usual, containing plentyof water in the cavities of its surface. Travelling distance 18miles; direct distance 14 miles N. E.

This day we noticed a flock of 10 black cockatoos; these beingthe only birds of this species which have been seen during thelast 10 days.

June 5.—Messrs. Robinson,Edwards, and Hall, did not make their appearance until 11 a.m.to-day, and then brought with them only 5 horses, having beenunable to find the other two, and having been without water,about 30 hours themselves, and their horses about 50 hours. Theyand their horses were of course much knocked up, and the task ofgoing back to find the two missing horses naturally devolved uponmyself and Kowitch.

Accordingly about noon we started back on our yesterday'strack, with 3 of the strayed horses, of which one carried threedays' provisions for us, as it appeared most probable that therecovery of these horses would now occupy at least 3 days. Werode pretty quickly back to our old camp, in order to have timeto make a preliminary search of the adjacent country before dark,and as we reached it, to our great surprise and gratification, wefound the two horses quietly grazing within 100 yards of it,having evidently returned from a distant and fruitless search forwater. As they were hobbled, we easily caught them.

As it was not yet 4 p.m., we resolved to return to the rest ofthe party at the rock, preferring two hours' travel through thebush in the dark to keeping the two recovered horses any longerwithout water by camping here all night; accordingly afterstopping here half an hour to rest our horses and to refreshourselves with a smoke, to which bad practice I find that thebush life of an explorer gives a peculiar proclivity, we startagain for our camp, which I observe that Kowitch always calls"home," which we reach about 8 p.m., very tired, cold and hungry,having ridden 36 miles since noon, of which the last 8 were at avery slow walking place, as otherwise we should have been unableto keep the track, the night being very dark, and the bush verythick.

Notwithstanding all our care, we lost one of the three horses,which we drove loose, in one of the thickets, after dark, but wefound, on reaching the camp, that he had come on before us on thetrack,—a fact of which we pretty well assured ourselvesbefore we gave up the search for him in the thicket.

This straying of a part of our horses, which thus finallyresulted in much less delay and trouble than I had anticipated, Imust frankly attribute to Mr Robinson's overtenderness for hismare, Rose, whom I cannot persuade him to put hobbles on. Thesingular care and tenderness with which most colonial-bred ladsregard their horses, as the chef d'œuvres of organiccreation, reminds one of the classical affection of the Bedouinfor his steed. I hope, however, that this unselfish and amiableweakness of Mr Robinson will turn out to the advantage of theExpedition, in enabling us to carry all our horses with usthroughout it, although 2 or 3 of them, which were in poorcondition when we started, are now showing many indications ofoverwork.

June 6.—There being plenty ofwater and comparatively good feed here, we determined to rest thehorses here to-day.

This morning, in taking a survey of the surrounding countryfrom the top of this bald hill, we discovered, at about 2 milesdistance to the southward, another very large bald hill, ofprobably nearly 100 acres of surface, and which from its lowelevation we had not seen yesterday, although we must have passedwithin a mile or so of it.

I suspect that the opinion which, on general meteorologicalprinciples, I have long formed, namely, that the climate of thewinter season in this inland part of South Western Australia iscomparatively dry, and that a large fraction of the annualrainfall is delivered in summer thunder-storms, will be shown byfuture experience to be correct, as the soil here now is nearlyas parched and dry as at midsummer in the York district, andthere is yet little appearance of a spring-growth in either thegrass or the shrubs.

If this theory be correct, the best season for exploring itwill be from September until January during which period it isprobable that the bald bills will hold plenty of water in thecavities of their surfaces, and the grass around them will be ina nutritious and palatable stage of growth.

At 8 a.m., Kowitch and myself start towards some hills distantfrom camp about 6 miles south, in the hope of obtaining from thema view either of the lake valley to the south, or of some morebald hills to the east. In both respects we were disappointed, asa higher range of bills intercepted our view to the south, and nobald hills were, visible towards the east. Reached camp againbefore noon, which enabled me to obtain a meridian altitude ofthe sun, which showed our latitude to be 31 d. 12 m. S.

As I think it probable that the lake valley has now taken apermanent bend to the southward, and as the exploration of thecountry in the direction of Central Australia, rather thantowards the south coast, is of importance to the colony, I haveresolved to proceed a little to the north of east to-morrow, andhenceforth, so far as water and grass will permit; but as thewater on the bald hills is evidently drying up rather rapidlyunder the influence of the bright cold weather which we have hadfor some days, it is of course uncertain how far I may be able topersevere in this direction.

June 7.—At 9 a.m., Messrs.Robinson, Edwards, and myself, proceed on with 14 horses, leavingHall and Kowitch to search for the horse Silver, which, inconsequence of its very low condition, I had directed yesterdayto be left unhobbled, and which had thereby been enabled to strayduring the night. At 4 p.m. halted at some poor feed, withoutwater for either ourselves or the horses, the very unpromisingappearance of the country ahead of us and the fatigue of thehorses, determining me to halt here without water, rather thanincur the risk of driving them through a thick bush in the dark,and the certain inconvenience of unloading and camping in thedark; no hills likely to afford water being visible, except at anapparent distance of more than 10 or 12 miles.

The water-tins, being left with Hall, to be brought on bySilver, (who, on account of his weakness, has carried these only,and them generally empty, for the last fortnight) and notexpecting that Hall would overtake us this evening, and beingtired and hungry, with our 7 hours walking, we ate our supperwithout tea to wash it down, and were preparing to go to turninto our blankets, when at about 8 p.m., to our not smalldelight, Hall and Kowitch made their appearance, without Silver,but themselves bearing the water-tins, which enabled us soon toget a pannikin of tea each, which we so much required and cravedfor.

They had found Silver at some miles back on the track by whichwe had approached the bald hill left this morning, had broughthim in, and started forward on our track by about noon; but atabout midway between our present camp and that of last night,Silver had become so completely knocked up, that he lay down, andwould proceed no further, although relieved even of hispack-saddle; Hall, therefore, abandoned him there, and knowingthat he was completely worn out; for present purposes, I did notthink it worth while to send back for him.

I think, however, that he will recover his strength andultimately work his way back to York.

The majority of the other horses are still looking well, but 2or 3 more, which were received in a poor condition, I fear, willknock up, although we give them all the favor possible, as far astheir loads are concerned.

Travelling distance 20 miles; direct distance 19 miles E.Country travelled, generally poor, with much sand-plain andthicket.

At 9 p.m. we were obliged to tie up all the horses, as theywere fast making their way back to last night's camp in search ofwater, the grass being so dry and withered, that they would noteat it without water.

June 8.—At 7 a.m. started, andat 1 mile towards the large hill observed yesterday to theeastward, we unexpectedly come upon another low but veryextensive exhibition of bare rock, with plenty of water on it andgrass round it. Camp here, not only to rest and feed the horses,which much require this relief after being tied up all night, butfrom an erroneous reckoning that the day is Sunday, an errorwhich originated in the past week, and was not discovered andcorrected until we returned to Mr Smith's station.

At 10 a.m. read to the party the principal portion of theChurch Service for this Sunday morning.

I omitted to record yesterday that Kowitch shot a gnow, thefirst yet killed by any member of the party, and which we ate fordinner to-day, stewed with slices of pork, and found to be a veryagreeable change on the cold salt pork which, with exception ofone kangaroo and one emu, has been our sole meat since leaving MrSmith's station. As we are always on the look out for game, Ithink this is a sufficient proof of the extraordinary destitutionof game in this part of Australia; but I hope, when the winterrains set in, that we shall obtain plenty of ducks, and of theireggs, in the lakes, which now are nearly all perfectly dry, butto which I infer that ducks migrate to breed every winter, atleast I was informed by the natives about Mount Stirling(Munlyeen) last year, that vast numbers of ducks breed in thelakes of their neighbourhood every winter. I therefore promisemyself and party, who however dissent from my theoretical viewsof the economy of nature in this respect, many feasts of ducksand duck eggs before we finish our journey.

The whole face of this rock is marked with wavy, andapparently vertical striae, sometimes, but not in all cases, of adark color, and radiating from many different centres in therock.

Neither myself nor any of the party have noticed thisphenomenon at any rock previously visited.

The Messrs. Dempster having recorded in the journal of theexpedition to the eastward of Northam which they made in thewinter of 1861, that they discovered a dark colored bituminousliquid exuding from some of the bald hills which they saw, andspeculations as to the probability of this exudation springingfrom carboniferous strata having been formed, it may serve todissipate erroneous hopes and expectations if I distinctly allegethe impossibility of the existence of carboniferous strata in thecountry which we have traversed, and as this includes a portionof that traversed by the Messrs. Dempster, and from theirdescription of the formation of the country traversed by them,and my own observation of the contour of the country to the northof our track, I infer the continuity of the geological structurewhich obtains here to a great distance to the north of our routeand of their route, the solution proposed of the phenomenon bythem appears to me utterly inadmissible.

This exudation has not yet been observed by any of us; but aswe are travelling earlier in the winter season than they did, andno heavy rains have yet fallen, we may yet hope to observe itbefore the conclusion of our journey.

I may also state very positively that on or near the linewhich we have traversed, not a particle of basalt, porphyry, orother eruptive rock, has come to the surface, and that theprimitive granite contains no ruptures or fissures through whichany underlying matter ever could have reached the surface; andthat the (as I estimate) great fertility of a large portion ofthe surface soil of this country is due solely to the largerportion of feldspar contained in it.

June 9.—Start at 7.30 a.m., andat 11.30 a.m. reach some fine grass in the upper part of a narrowvalley running up into a range of hills. This grass beingunusually good, and there being strong indications of rain thisevening or night, we camp here. Direct distance 12 miles E. by N.In our journey to-day we observed many indications of a change inthe character of the country; the hill-sides, in many cases,being cut by gullies 4 or 5 feet deep—a depth of gullywhich we have not noticed previously since leaving Smith'sstation. At about 9 miles came into a deeply cut valley, whichterminated in a range of hills, trending from the northward, andattaining an elevation of about 3 or 400 feet above the plain tothe southward.

In the afternoon I walked to the top of the highest hill inthe neighbourhood of the camp, and found that this range has awidth of 4 or 5 miles, and a broken surface, and that it appearsto be a projection of a higher flat land to the northward.

At an apparent distance of about 20 miles north-east, Iobserved what appeared to be a very large hill, just showingabove the horizon, towards which I intend to travelto-morrow.

We have passed no water to-day, nor is there any at our camp,but we have brought with us in our tins (which unfortunately bothleak a good deal) a short allowance for our tea to-night and forour breakfast to-morrow.

These hills are capped with a gneissose schist, which again iscovered with an argillaceous schist, containing a smallpercentage of iron. I can discover no trace of eruptive rockabout them, but I think they have resulted from local fissuring,attended with very slight elevation, and it is probable that acareful examination of the edge of the very slightly elevatedtable land to our north, of which these hills are simply aprojecting extension, may discover a line of fissure determiningthe southern limit of that table land, and separating it from thevast mass of unfissured primitive granite which we havetraversed.

Having observed some tracks of kangaroos about these hills,being the first observed for the last 200 miles traversed, andwhich we assume to have been formed by individuals of the redspecies, known to exist in the interior to the northward, all theparty except myself took their guns in pursuit of them thisafternoon. However, no one succeeded in getting a sight of anykangaroo.

We have observed many new species of trees and shrubs duringthe past 3 days. I may enumerate, among these a bushy shrub, ofthe family of Conacea, with short erect stem, attaining a heightof 4 or 5 feet—very long spines, and a cone much like thatof a Scotch fir: a small variety of salt-bush; a very shortstemmed but erect Eucalyptus, growing principally on hill-tops,with a flower of a beautiful pink color, and hexagonal ovariesvery deeply grooved longitudinally on external surface.

June 10.—Having made anindifferent supper last night and breakfast this morning on thescanty allowance of only ¾ pint of tea each, both our water tinsnow leaking at such a rate that they will not retain to the endof a day's march one quarter of the quantity of water which theyhold when filled, at 7.30 a.m. we start for the big hill observedyesterday and bearing N.N.E. of us. At 0.30 p.m., aftertravelling 15 miles, and at a direct distance of 14 miles N.N.E.,we fortunately and unexpectingly found a native well in a hole ofa ferruginous conglomerate, which extends far down the side of alow hill, and at the lower edge of which this water-holeexists.

Our horses, having had no water last night, soon lowered thewater in this hole by more than one half its volume, the drynessof the grass causing them to drink very largely and require itfrequently.

There is abundance of grass about this well, as in fact overall the country traversed to-day, and Messrs. Robinson and Hallexpress a very high opinion of its value for pastoral purposes,to the disparagement of the land of bald hills, which we appearto have left behind us. I however by no means assent to anydisparaging reflections on the latter, for I feel confident thatinnumerable first-rate sheep thus will be found or formed in it,and that a considerable portion of its surface, to wit, the wideflat alluvial valleys which divide the bald hills from oneanother, with artificial drainage, will be proved to possess avery high degree of agricultural fertility.

In ruminating, as I walked on behind the pack-horses to-day,on the origin of the bald hills and on their future uses in theeconomy of South Western Central Australia, a conception of theuses to which they would have been applied, if this country hadever been colonised by a warlike feudal aristocracy, similar tothat of the middle ages in Western Europe, naturally crossed mymind.

Then many a bald hill would have been the site of abattlemented fortress, forming both the residence, the wealth,and the power of a feudal baron; such as it would have delightedthe heart of Sir Walter Scott to paint in glowing words, and manya smaller hill would have been surmounted by a small fortalice,in which some family of the chief tenantry of the feudal lordwould have resided; but to my Utopian bent of mind, mentalpictures of the family mansions, replete with every luxury andrefinement of a wealthy and cultivated resident landedaristocracy, each rising from the summit of one of the largerbald hills, and of the smaller and less pretentious but stillsubstantial and comfortable residences of a wealthy yeomanry,occupying the summits of many of the smaller bald hills, afford amore pleasing subject of contemplation; and I am sanguine enoughto believe that many a little boy now living in the Yorkdistrict, and whose apparent prospects are not very bright, willin mature life be the proprietor of one of these mansions. Infact, I confidently hold that, how much the best pastoraldistricts of Victoria may surpass this district as to pastoralcapacities, the latter is vastly superior, as to both pastoraland agricultural purposes, to any district of Western Australiaheretofore explored.

In the afternoon Mr Robinson and myself walked to the top ofthe fine hill towards which we had I directed our course all day.We found its distance from the well to be about 4½ miles N. byE.; that it is an isolated hill rising to a height of about 600feet above the plain which in fact surrounds it on every side.The adjacent plain has a gentle slope up the flanks of the hillto about 300 feet of its elevation, beyond which the hill is veryprecipitous.

On the flanks of this hill some deep gullies have beenexcavated by the surface drainage, exhibiting general sections ofthe dull white sandstone which underlies the surface soils in thewhole country east ward of the Avon, but which in the lattervalley is overlaid by some 20 feet in thickness of estuary claysand a fluviatile silt. This sandstone is evidently a pelagicdeposit which immediately followed the disruption of the granitecrust in the few lines in which rupture has been developed, as itfills up its fissures conformably, and preceded the precipitationfrom the waters of the ocean of the iron to which the presentgeneral red color of the surface soils is due.

There is no appearance of tilting in the bedding of this hill,which, as far as I can judge, is quite horizontal; but it has theappearance of having been relatively raised, in the progressivecontraction of the earth's radius by being based on a small massof some material whose rate of contraction, cooling, is slowrelatively to that of the surrounding matter, and which mass mustlie not far below the surface.

The rock itself is primitive granite, covered with a smallthickness of gneiss and ironstone.

In the course of this day we have passed, on the tops of manysmall rounded hills, much shale, which as to texture, laminationand color, close approaches a rotten soft slate.

The country appears to have a very gentle slope from thenorth.

In thinking over the names which might be pro posed for theprominent natural features of this new country, I particularlyregret that we have not yet seen a single native, and thereforethat I am unable to ascertain their native names, which I thinkgood taste would desire to preserve in every possible case, bothfrom their philological value as remnants of a natural language,which must soon disappear, and to prevent the tiresome repetitionof familiar English names of individuals or localities in theSouthern Hemisphere.

June 11.—At about 8 p.m.yesterday, as we were rolling ourselves in our blankets for thenight, a warm gentle rain began to fall, and continued all night.True, it soon wetted our blankets through, as we weresleeping-without our tents, as in fine weather we frequently do,but it seemed to break the charm of the continued dry coldweather which we have experienced lately, and will enable a startof young grass to spring up, and give us greater confidence offinding water in our future wanderings. Up to yesterday thesurface has been as dry and parched, and the grass as withered,as they are usually in the York district 2 months earlier in theseason. No doubt, when this country shall be closely fed withsheep, and the old grass thus consumed or destroyed, the state ofthe grass at this season of the year will generally be verydifferent from what it is now, as the experience on Mr Smith'srun strongly shows, but I am still strongly of the opinion whichI have already recorded in this journal, that the winters of thiscountry are comparatively dry, though not to the extent ofinjuring the growth of grass and corn on cultivated land, allthrough it, and that an uncommonly large fraction of the wholeannual rainfall is delivered in thunder storms during thesummer.

Started at 9.45 a.m.; travelled till 2 p.m., about 14 miles,through one of the richest red colored alluvial flats that I haveseen in any country. Direct distance 13 miles N.E.

This plain is covered with 3 or 4 varieties of salt-bush, withsamphire, a long-jointed grass, still green, of which the horsesare very fond, and with much sweet grass intermixed with thesamphire. The long-jointed grass above mentioned I have no doubtwill be cultivated in future years, from its property inretaining succulence all through the hot summer, and from theevident relish with which the horses eat it.

Two species of samphire abound on this plain, of which one hasan erect stem, from which the branches proceed. The varieties ofsalt-bush and samphire alone would form excellent pasture for anysort of stock, but after the country shall have been closely fedwith sheep, I believe that it will soon be over spread with athick sward of sweet and nutritious grasses.

In fact, I have no hesitation in expressing my belief that fewfiner sheep runs are to be found in Australia than the vast plainwhich encircles the fine hill above described, and which, in myinability to discover and record its native name, I propose tocall by the name of my old and highly-esteemed friend Mr S.Burges, of Tipperary, near York.

This plain is cut by many shallow surface drains or gutters,but towards its southern edge, where it runs into the wide lakevalley, of which the surface is some 20 or 30 feet lower thanthat of the plain, a few of these gullies attain a depth ofnearly 20 feet, and show the thickness of the rich alluvial soilthere to be about 15 feet.

In traversing this plain, which is very thinly covered withtimber, we obtained many fine views of Mount Burges, risinggrandly and singly from the plain, which in fact completelyencloses it. I think that the elevation of its summit above theplain, say at a distance of one mile from its base, can differbut little from that of the summit of Mount Bakewell, above theAvon, near its base; and from its isolated position in the centreof a vast plain, which has a most gentle slope from thenorthward, it has a much finer effect, as a feature of thecountry, than Bakewell has; the latter, in fact, being only aprojection, into a narrow and rather deep valley, occupying anancient fissure of the earth's crust, of a slightly dislocatedmass of the original crust.

We are camping near a few gallons of water derived from lastnight's rain, and stored in a depression of the clay.

One feature in the climatology of this country, which hasstruck me much, is the very small amount of horizontal movementof the atmosphere which takes place here at this season of theyear. During one only of the 30 days which have elapsed sinceleaving Mr Smith's station, have we experienced even a wind ofmoderate force. During a few days we have had a rather raw coldatmosphere, but without sun or wind, but the air has beengenerally mild and warm, the sky cloudy, with occasionaloutbreaks of the sun, and such I suspect so be the usual winterclimate of this country. On the other hand, the fact that thewoorock, and other species of smooth-barked trees, are festoonedwith long narrow streamers or ribbons of bark, suspended from thetopmost branches and sweeping the ground, and that thepaper-barked shrubs of the Casuarina family have their stems andbranches nearly stripped of their natural light thin integuments,particularly on the north and north-east sides, shows plainlythat this absence of wind through the winter season is quitecompensated by an extraordinary intensity of land wind in thesummer.

June 12—Start at 7.30 a.m., andat 6.30 p.m. camp by the side of a small lake, on a clay-pan,having water of about 2 inches maximum depth on it. Travellingdistance 14 miles; direct distance 12 miles east.

Our whole course to-day has been obliquely through a wide,flat, covered, with lakes, or, more correctly speaking, with vastshallow sand or clay-pans, which may be presumed to hold more orless water in ordinary winters, but which at this present areperfectly waterless, with exception of the one at which we areencamped, and into which it would appear that a shower of a verylocal character had just casually dropped.

This chain of lakes trends from N.E. to S.W., and appears tohave a more considerable descent than any lake-chain which wehave previously seen, as there are channels leading from one laketo another, of which some are cut 4 or 5 feet deep, and in somecases floods have cut cliffs, as much as 20 feet in height, outof their alluvial banks and the stratum of soft white halfdisintegrated fine-grained sandstone, on which the alluvial soilis bedded. This shows that floods (of considerable volume andvelocity), must sometimes pour through this chain, at all events,whatever may be the case of the other lake chains which we havepassed, and in which we could discover indications of neitherfloods nor currents.

As far as I can judge, we passed to-day 3 parallel belts orchains of lakes, lying close along-side of each other, in thecentre of this wide lake valley. In the belt, on the north-westside, the subsoil, as above observed, is this fine-grained nearlyrotten sandstone, and the surface soil generally a light redalluvium; but in the belt on the opposite or south side, thesurface soil is a stiff dark red clay, and the subsoil aremarkably hard, very dark red-colored clay, containing smallround pebbles, of what rock I omitted to determine, but of thehardness of the subsoil we had sufficient proof in the digging ahole, about a foot deep, in the floor of the lake, that the watermight drain into it and settle, and that thereby we might have asmaller proportion of clay in it than is unavoidably brought upwhen the pannikin is dipped into water of about one inchdepth.

In ascending a channel leading from one lake to another, inthe northern belt, I noticed a dyke of quartz, which hadevidently cut through, and tilted to a distance not exceeding 25or 30 feet on either side of it, a hard fine-grained sandstone orschist, which underlies the soft rotten sandstone beforementioned. This phenomenon, which I examined with much care andattention, appears to throw some valuable light on the geology ofthis part of Australia, namely,

1st. That the injection of this quartz-dyke was subsequent tothe deposition and induration of the hard schistose sandstonetilted, and, as a necessary consequence,

2nd. That it was subsequent to the epoch of this portion ofthe country assuming its actual contour.

3rd. That even in a position so favourable to the developmentof its thickness, the thickness of the schistose sandstone isvery small otherwise the tilted portion would not have beenlimited to a width of 30 feet from the dyke.

4th. It proves the prolongation of the period of theoccasional fissuring of the granite under a contractile force, toa very late epoch in the progress of the geological developmentof this country.

5th. That these fissures are not generally attended with anychange of the relative level of the two sides of the fissure.

In the vicinity of the lakes, on the western side, I observedfragments of gypsum scattered over hundreds of acres ofsurface.

The horses have been fed the whole afternoon, and evening on acoarse bamboo or cane-like species of long-jointed grass,perfectly new to all our party. It grows on the clay bottom ofthe lake which contains the water.

As the horses ate it greedily, notwithstanding its present dryand withered state, I infer that they would eat it still morereadily in a green state.

This grass attains a height of 4 or 5 feet, and throws up manystalks from the same stem. The stalks are bent at each joint.

June 13.—Start at 8.30 a.m., andtravel till 2 p.m., when, the horses showing strong signs offatigue and weakness, and having had plenty of water at the lakelast night, and discovering no indications of water ahead of us,we camp on an open salt-bush plain, which moreover bears a largequantity of the green long-jointed grass, frequently mentionedbefore in this Journal, and of which the horses are very fond,without water, but having sufficient water for a short allowanceof tea this evening and to morrow morning in our leakywater-wins. Travelling distance 15 miles;—direct distance14 E. by S.

The first 3 miles of our route to-day was over a dark redstiff alluvial plain, sloping gently towards the lakes, andapparently first-rate wheat land, Ascending gradually from this,we reached a hilly country of a poor character, the roundedhilltops being capped by a stratum of ironstone at the surface,which is underlaid by a thin stratum of indurated shales, whichagain lay on a gneiss of very fine grain and a bright lustre whenbroken. Of this also I think the thickness is small.

The latter part of our route again lay through fine alluvialplains, covered with many varieties of salt-bush, samphire andgrass.

June 14.—A gentle rain lastingnearly one hour, fell last night, which I hope was of much use toour horses; still there is no appearance of such rain as wouldenable us to proceed with confidence of finding water anywherebut in the bald hills, which we have evidently left behind, allthe gullies on the steep side of Mount Burges being still as hardand dry as they could have been in the summer, and I think it notimprobable that we shall be obliged to turn back, to the lastbald hill, which we left on the 10th instant, and wait there forheavy rain.

Started at 8.45. a.m., and at 2 p.m., camped on a large openplain, without water, but with excellent feed of salt-bush andgrass. Travelling distance 13 miles; direct distance 12 miles S.E. Our horses being knocked up, and there not being the slightestprospect of finding water by proceeding further over this vastalluvial plain in an easterly direction, determined me to halthere.

There are now and have been all day heavy vapor-laden cloudsall round the horizon, which elsewhere would be considered areliable indication of rain, but here we have frequently observedthem without being followed with rain. If fortunately we get aheavy rain in the course of the next 24 hours, we shall be ableto proceed on our intended course to the eastward, but all ourhorses are now showing evident signs of weakness and knocking up,which I attribute in part to their having during the last 10 daysbeen without water for 3 single nights, but principally to theinnutritious state of the grass which they are compelled to eat.As not one five-hundredth part of the surface of the country wasburnt last summer, and as the fauna of the country contains noherbiverous species, such as the kangaroo, to crop the grass downin every tuft of grass is the growth of 2 or 3 summers in whichof course the withered dusty accumulation of dried leaves andstalks bears enormous ratio to the few little shoots of greengrass which are now making their appearance. To eat this sort offood horses require frequent water. As far as the nutritiousnessof the natural pastures is concerned undoubtedly we aretraversing this country at the very worst season of the year.

The country traversed to-day has been a red stiff clay plainwith a gentle slope from some low ranges, covered with ironstoneconglomerate, and the plain in places is thickly sprinkled withvery minute black shining pebbles of this. The surface of theplain generally is as hard and dry as if not a drop of rain hadfallen for 6 months.

This morning we abandoned a second horse, namely, Quiz,furnished by Mr Hardy. He was not fit for this service, as tocondition, when we received him, and for many days he has been oflittle use to us. I hope that both he and Silver will find theirway back to their respective owners near York, when they shallhave recovered their strength.

June 15.—No rain having fallenlast night, and our horses consequently having been 72 hours, andourselves 24 hours, without water, and, which was in fact of moreserious import, being 6 days' journey from any water on which wecould rely, namely, from that at the last bald rock which we lefton the morning of the 9th, for we had left only a few gallons ofwater in the hole of the ironstone near Mt. Burges, and theshallow mud and water of the lake at which we camped on the nightof the 12th, would probably be dried op entirely before we couldget back to it, I resolve to return to the bald rock quitted onthe morning of the 10th, making, however, a digression to thesouthward, in view of the possibility of finding shallow water insome one or another of the lake beds, assuming that we shouldintersect some of the lake chains in that direction.

With our actual inexperience as whether any heavy rain doesfall here in the winter months, and how soon it is likely tofall; with a certainty that any water, which may now cover one inten or in twenty of the lake-bottoms to the depth of one or twoinches, will speedily sink into the ground or be evaporated,unless rain falls; with every appearance of an indefiniteextension of this alluvial but now waterless soil to the east andnorth-east; with our horses fast knocking up, already 48 hourswithout water, and ourselves 24 hours without the same primenecessary of life; with the only known reliable supply of water 5days' journey behind us, it would have been rash in the extremeto push on any farther in this direction.

Started at 9 a.m. Travelled 10 miles W. by N., then 3 miles W.S. W. then 9 miles W. N. W., when we very unexpectedly find waterabout 2 inches deep in a lake, with excellent feed about. Here ofcourse we camp, both ourselves and horses being much knockedup.

This water is perfectly sweet, but surcharged with clay, ofwhich it leaves a thick sediment in every pannikin, and from thisfact, and from that of the lake at which we encamped on the 12thinstant being also perfectly sweet, and from having observed nodeposit of salt in any of the numberless dry lake-beds which wehave passed, I infer that sodium is not an element of the graniteof this country, and consequently that no apprehension of findingsalt water in sinking wells in this country need beentertained.

Our travelling distance to-day is 22 miles; direct distance 19miles W. by N.

Our first 12 miles were over a magnificent lightly timbered,almost level plain, of an apparently rich stiff, dark redalluvium, such as I should imagine would grow splendid crops ofwheat, and having just sufficient slope for purposes ofartificial drainage. The latter 9 miles were obliquely acrosswhat I suspect to be a north-eastern branch of the great lakevalley, nearly the whole breadth of which may be said to beoccupied with lakes. These lakes are separated one from anotherby low banks or terrace, of which the substructure is thefine-grained rotten sandstone so frequently mentioned, and thesurface is a light alluvial soil of a dark red color, coveredwith salt-bush, samphire, and grass. Many of the lake bot tomsnow are covered samphire and grass, from which fact I infer thatthey are being gradually filled up above the level of the winterfloods whilst perhaps other lines of them are being graduallydeepened so as to draw the floods into them.

Altogether I should think that few districts of Australiacontain more fattening sheep runs for summer feeding than thisvalley does; in which opinion, all of us concur; and I may addthat I apprehend that the surface of this valley and that of thenumerous minor lake valleys which run into it from manydirections, will be found, on full exploration of this country,to occupy a very large portion of its surface. Moreover theextent of rich alluvial plains sloping gently into the lakebottoms on either side is very great, so that this districtappears destined to become ultimately one of the richestagricultural and pastoral districts of Australia.

We noticed much gypsum on the floors of many of the lakestraversed to-day.

June 16.—No rain or any prospectof any, which would justify me in proceeding again into the heartof the rich alluvial plains which surround us north, east, andsouth; but there being a sufficiency of muddy water in the lake,the feed round it being so good, and our horses being so much inneed of rest, I determine to recruit them here a couple of daysbefore I make back to our last bald-hill camp, from which, afterthe horses are sufficiently recruited, to make a push towards thesouth coast, as I think it very desirable if possible toascertain how far good land extends in that direction; as thefacility of stocking this country from the overstocked runs ofVictoria and South Australia must much depend on its facility ofaccess to the coast of the Australian Bight. Moreover I wish, ifpracticable, to visit the elevated white cliffs laid down byFlinders in, his survey of the shores of the Australian Bight,and which are reported by Eyre to be composed of chalk, withflints, as their constitution cannot fail to throw much light onthe geology of South Central Australia.

After our usual early breakfast, Mr Robinson and myselfexamined first several small islands projecting out of the floorof the lake, near its western margin, and afterwards climbed tothe top of a small round hill, projecting like a peninsula intothe lake valley on its north-west side, and attaining anelevation of about 200 feet above the lakes. To this hill Ipropose to attach the name of my indefatigable and estimablefriend and companion Mr Robinson. It bears from Mount Burges E½S; distance 18 miles.

On the flanks of this hill a remarkably hard metamorphicshale, which by exposure to weather acquires a vitreous polish,crops out. This shale is composed of many wavy laminae ofdifferent colors, and different degrees of induration; as if someof the laminae were composed of matter of differentheat-conducting power from that of the others.

As to the islands within the margin of this lake, and many ofthe small hillocks which form the western shore of the lake, thefact that the shales which compose these are for the most partset on their edges, and that these edges tend in all directions,strongly suggests the idea that they must be ascribed to largefragments of the shale-covered side of the fissure now filled bythe lake valley having toppled over into the chasm, and being notyet buried in the alluvial soil of the valley. In fact, I suspectthat a careful examination of the geological structure of thiscountry will show that this wide lake valley, and perhaps a largeportion of the adjacent alluvial plains, occupy the site of avast fissure of the granitic crust, and that the northern andwestern side of the fissured crust extends in an unbroken, orvery rarely broken, mass far into the interior of South WesternCentral Australia, and certainly that none of the vast fragmentsinto which it may have been ruptured, have suffered any sensibletilting or relative elevation.

In sitting by our camp fire of an evening to eat our generallymuch-relished supper of damper, pork, and tea, and thereafter tosmoke our equally enjoy able and indispensable pipes, I hear frommy companions, all of whom possess much bush experience, muchknowledge both of the natives and of the indigenous fauna of thiscolony, many stories of much interest bearing on thesesubjects.

This evening, for instance, two similar and well authenticatedinstances of the fallibility of the senses of wild animals, in amatter as to which I suppose most persons would consider thejudgment of a wild animal absolutely infallible, were narrated,and I think they are of sufficient interest to be recordedbriefly.

The first case was as follows:—

Hall and some friends were travelling in the hush some yearsago, and were sitting round a very huge camp-fire one night aftersupper, when three mountain-ducks flew down into the fire, whichthey had evidently mistaken for water, and were so astonished ondiscovering their error, that Hall and his friends caught 2 outof the 3.

In the second instance, which was narrated by Kowitch andcorroborated by Mr Robinson, in whose neighbourhood the incidenthad occurred, as a large party of natives were sitting round alarge camp-fire one night, about 6 years ago, near Beverley, 2old swans and a brood of gannets dived down into the fire, andall of them were caught by the natives, and given or sold by themto a settler in the neighbour hood the next day. Both Robinsonand Kowitch knew most of the natives who were seated round thefire at the time; and I may add that Kowitch, who is one of themost intelligent and sensible natives that I ever knew, told methat this was the only case of this sort that he ever heard of inhis life. I record these cases, as they may serve to correct thesome what exaggerated estimate generally I think entertained ofthe infallibility of the senses of wild animals as to thefeatures of nature.

Hall also on a previous occasion mentioned two factsillustrative of the habits and feelings of the aborigines of thecoast between Augusta and Albany, which appear to me veryinteresting, the one physiologically and the otherphyscologically.

The first of these facts is as follows:—

The district above defined has a poor gravelly soil coveredwith mahogany forests. In this country kangaroos are very scarce,the natives very poor, and compelled to toil hard for their food.During the wet season their principal food is the kangaroo, whichthey catch thus:—Three search the bush in company to find akangaroo. As soon as they sight one, the most skilful of thethree in the art of tracking follows the track of the kangaroo ata quick run, the other two natives keeping abreast of him, and ata distance of 20 or 30 yards from him, one on either side. Theoffice of these two is to pick up the track at once if the nativein the centre should accidently lose it. They run along the trackat the rate of about 6 miles per hour; whenever they approach thekangaroo, they shout and drive it on again; they continue thechase until dark; the next morning they take up the track again,and follow it up in the same way all day; on the third morningthey return to the chase of the same animal again, which isalways caught by simple exhaustion, during the afternoon of thethird day; Hall assuring me that he had never known an instanceof the kangaroo being killed much before the middle of the thirdday, or of its surviving the evening of that day; therebyillustrating the very important and suggestive truths that themuscular powers and constitutional strength both of wild animalsand of man in a state of nature, when tested to the death; arealmost uniform throughout each species, and that the wild manpossesses these bodily powers in a measure equal or superior tothat of most wild animals.

The second fact narrated by Hall is of much psychologicalinterest, and very discordant with our narrow and depreciatoryconceptions of the moral nature of man in the lowest possiblestage of social progress.

In the district above defined, during the summer season of theyear, the natives are forced, by the dearth of all other food, tolive principally on a tuber, called by them mena; of which 4 or 5grow to one plant.

These tubers are eaten in a roasted state, and have thefollowing remarkable, and possible valuable qualities:—

1st. They are so laxative in their action on the bowels, thatthe natives guard against this effect by eating with them a whiteunctuous pipe-clay which is found in many districts of thecolony.

2ndly. These tubers dye the tongue, palate, lips, gums, andinterior surface of cheeks with a bright purple color, which isso permanent that, in the case of a 'native of this district whofollowed Hall from it to the Canning district and remained in hisservice in the latter district 3 years, and consequently duringthat time never tasted this root, the dye was not perceptiblyfaded at the expiration of that time.

Note.—This dye does not affectthe colour of the teeth.

Now the country above defined is esteemed by all theneighbouring tribes to be so poor, that to belong to, or residein it, is held as a proof of abject and contemptible poverty, forwho would eat clay for a large part of each year; or get his meatfor the remainder of the year, by the toilsome and almost animalexpedient of hunting down the kangaroo by a continuous chase of 3days, when in all the surrounding country the kangaroo can bespeared in unlimited quantity at one season of the year, and thevegetable world supplies abundance of wholesome and palatablefood for the remainder, unless he were wanting in courage or inenterprize; in other words, were a coward or a fool.

Such reasoning expresses the feeling of the wealthier tribesaround, far in the simple and change less forms of Society andculture which Nature has impressed on man in Australia, the scornof there happier and more fortunate fellows which poverty, everso bravely and honestly borne, so often incurs, no less than inthe higher forms of civilization which Christianity, science, andwealth have developed elsewhere, inflicts a keener pain than thephysical privations and muscular toil which merely constitute thebodily substance and form of poverty.

The mena-eater knows well the contempt with which theneighbouring tribes regard him. His purple dyed tongue and lipswill, he knows, proclaim to all strangers at every korrobberythat he belongs to a degraded race. The first word he utters willdisclose his humble rank and status in Society, and perhaps drawdown on him a storm of derision and contempt. He therefore keepshis mouth shut, and assumes that position and demeanour in thepresence of his wealthier fellows, whether at a great publicfestival or at an accidental meeting, which befits his humble andpenurious condition of life. Yet does he love the barrenironstone-forest-clad hills of his native land, despied by allothers, and ungenerous to him, as he knows them to be, and greatindeed must be the motive which will draw him from them, or, ifaway, prevent his speedy return.

June 17.—Started at 9 a.m., andtravelled till past 6 p.m., when darkness compelled us to camp,without water, but in good feed, about 6 miles short of the wellat Mount Burges. Travelling distance 24 miles; direct distance 22miles W. by S.

The horses travelled to-day better than I had expected, havingbeen much recruited by their day's rest at the lake, where thegrass growing between the samphire was unusually green.

Of our course to-day, 5 or 6 miles were over low ranges,covered with metamorphic shales in angular fragments; about 6miles over fine alluvial plains of a rich dark red stiff soil;the remainder was through two lake valleys, both trending to thesouth-west, and probably uniting at a few miles to the south ofour track.

The country is still as dry, and the grass as withered, as Ihave ever seen it in the month of March in the Avon Valley, andto-day it was very unpleasant to walk behind the horses, from thedust blowing in our faces.

Again we had no water for tea to-night, as both from expectingto reach the well, and also on account of the extreme muddinessof the water of the lake, I had ordered none to be brought onwith us this morning. Of course we shall have none until we getto the well to-morrow.

Hall has been very poorly all this afternoon, complaining ofhis liver, the bad state of which he attributes to the muddywater of the hike. Neither Edwards nor myself feel well, I thinkfrom the cause to which Hall attributes his sickness, and we allfeel the privation of water to-night far more than on any formeroccasion.

June 18.—Started at 8.45 a.m.,of course without breakfast, as we are too thirsty to eat withoutdrink, and about noon reach the well, to our not small relief.Direct distance 7 miles W. by S.

We found that the water in the well had somewhat shrunk sincewe left it on the 11th instant, and we could afford our horsesonly 1½ gallons of water each, as we are obliged to carry onwater for our use to-morrow, as it will not be possible to reachthe bald rock, our camp of the 9th instant, to which we arcfalling back under two days, and we know that there is no wateron our track between these points.

To search for water now in the few shallow gullies which existis perfectly useless, and my only courses until heavy rain shallcome, is to halt the party at the nearest large bald hill, torecruit our horses, which are much knocked up, and to wait forrain; whilst Kowitch and myself endeavour to find a betterwatered country to the southward. Towards the eastward andnorthward, in which directions the alluvial plains seem to extendindefinitely, I have no hope of finding water until after veryheavy rain.

This design I had hoped to be able to carry out at and fromthe well, as I had entertained a doubtful faith that this wellwas fed by a hind drainage, and would be found full on our returnto it; a faith which it will have been seen that our experiencefalsified and which therefore I postponed until we should regainour last bald rock.

June 19.—Although we deepenedthe well, by clearing mud, &c., out of its bottom, by about 2feet last evening, in a feeble hope that water might drain intoit in the night, this morning we did not find more than 2 gallonsof water in it. Our horses, instead of feeding, had beencollected round the well all night, smelling the damp ground, andtrying to reach the little surface of water, which, being morethan 4 feet below the rocky edge of the well, they could noteffect, and consequently they looked miserable indeed thismorning. However at this present moment, 8 a.m., the sky isovercast with clouds, and if we had not so often been mistaken inour forecasts of rain from similar dark clouds, I shouldconfidently reckon that it will fall by noon to-day, and shouldremain here to recruit our horses and examine the country northand south, instead of returning farther west before doing so.

Started at 8.30 a.m., and 2 p.m. reach our camp of the 9thinstant. Direct distance 14 miles S. by W.

A little before noon a steady soaking rain began to descend,which, although it drenched us well before we reached ourcamping-ground, we all hailed with no little pleasure for thesake of our horses, and the facility of our future movements.Indeed if rain had not come to-day, I anticipate that we shouldhave left some of our horses bones at this camp—aconsummation not to be wondered at, if it be remembered that inthe last 11 days of constant hard travelling, with only one day'srest, they have once been 4 days and 3 nights without water, andon three other occasions have been upwards of 30 hours withoutthe same prime necessary, and that at a season of the year atwhich I think the grass, under existing circumstances, isaltogether more withered, dusty, and innutritious, than at anyother season.

June 20.—Start at 9 a.m., and at1.30 p.m. reach the bald rocks at which we had encamped on theevening of the 8th instant. Direct distance 12 miles, W. byS.

About half our route was over ranges of small rounded hills,capped with metamorphic schists; the remainder was over alluvialplains and slopes, of apparently rich soil, now coveredprincipally with salt-bush and a little withered grass inscattered tufts.

This has been a fine bright day, with no promise of furtherrain at hand, and I observe that the strong rain which gave assuch a drenching yesterday has not left a spoonful of surfacewater in any of the alluvial plains we have traversed to-day.

The appearance of the withered grass throughout this district,and the backward state of vegetation, as indicated by the shrubsand grasses of the country, combined with the appearance of thesky and the lightness of the very few showers, (except that ofyesterday) which we have experienced, they being in fact rathermists than, rainfalls, strongly impress on me, an opinion,

1st. That the total annual rainfall here bears a very smallratio to that of the western slope of the Darling Range, theactual quantities being probably about 25 and 40 inchesrespectively.

2ndly. That of the annual rainfall an unusually large fractionis delivered in the summer season, when it descends in violentrain storms, accompanied with much thunder.

3rdly. That the prevailing characteristic of the winter seasonhere is a cloudy state of sky, with occasional misty showers ofram, and very little wind.

If it be remembered that the mean annual rainfall at the townof Bedford, near the centre of England, and in a relatively lowposition, is less than one seventh of that received atBraithwaite, in Cumberland, on very high land close to thewestern coast, and is only about one quarter of that receivedgenerally on high hind near the western shores of the UnitedKingdom, and yet that the same species of plants constitute thestaple products of agriculture under these very differenthygrometric conditions; again if the remarks of Darwin on thecomparative effects of given quantities of rain in the dryinterior provinces of northern Chili, and in the humid maritimedistricts of the southern provinces of the same country, be dulyconsidered, no apprehension that the small annual rainfall whichI ascribe to this district will prove insufficient to thepurposes of a highly productive agricultural system in future,and to the wants of countless herds of sheep and cattle in thepresent, will be entertained.

As was to be expected, our horses, after there recent long andfrequent privations of water, on arriving near the rock, rushedto the water holes in an almost frantic way, and gorgedthemselves with their contents to a degree more easily conceivedthan described.

I was so ill to-day, I believe from the constipating effect ofthe clay-saturated water which we were compelled to drink at thelake, that I could not keep up with the party, and did not arriveat camping ground until long after they had got in. Hall andEdwards also have been very poorly for the last two days from thesame cause.

June 21.—All hands employed inrepairing bags and other gear, and in taking account of andrepacking the stores, &c.

It is absolutely necessary to rest here 4 or 5 days to recruitour horses, after their severe privations and hard work, and eventhen, unless heavy rain fall in the mean time, I apprehend that Imust fall back still farther west, as, from the alluvialcharacter of the country north-east, and south of our presentposition, and the absence apparently of bald rocks in thesedirections, I cannot expect at present to find water in either ofthese directions.

Our total travelling distance from Comining (Mr Smith'sstation) is now 546 miles, and as I think that the followingfacts will be valuable as records of the distribution of animallife, and of the aborigines, in this part of the interior ofAustralia, prior to the advent of colonists, and may serve tocorrect many erroneous conceptions on this subject generallyentertained, I will here record certain facts illustrative of thesubject.

Since leaving Comining on the 11th ultimo, 2 kangaroos and 3emus only have been seen by all members of the partycollectively. Of these, 1 kangaroo and 1 emu have been shot.During the same time 1 gnow has been shot, 5 have been seen, andabout 20 gnows' nests.

On the lakes which have contained water, about 30 ducks in allhave been seen, of which none have been shot, although severalattempts to get near them have been made, and at least three ofour party are good shots, but they are as wild as if they hadbeen fired at daily.

Not one native has yet been seen. Their fires have been seenon 4 occasions, and their tracks, but generally of many weeks' ormonths' date, on 10 or 12 occasions. During the last two days wehave travelled along our old track made 10 days since, but nonative has crossed or followed our track in that time.

All these facts I think indicate a scantiness of life, both,human and of the larger species of animals, in the interior ofAustralia, even where the soil is of great natural fertility,which throws a valuable light on the distribution of animal life,prior to the advent of civilized man and of cultivation, in othercountries of similar climatological conditions, for, as I believethat a great part of the country traversed by the expedition isendowed with the highest agricultural fertility, theextraordinary poverty of its larger fauna as to the number ofindividuals, must be ascribed solely to climatologicalconditions.

In the evening read to the party the Church Service for theday.

June 22.—This morning Kowitchand myself, taking 2 riding horses, 1 pack-horse, and 4 days'rations proceeded towards the southward, to ascertain if baldhills extended in that direction, and consequently if we couldmove our camp that way. We travelled nearly south all day, andcamped at a fine bald hill in the evening. Direct distance 18miles S.S.W. Country traversed, about one-half good alluvial, theremainder poor alluvials and sand-plains.

June 23.—Our course to-day hasbeen principally over clay forest lands and sand-plains. Directdistance made 20 miles S.S.E. Camp in the evening at some lowbare rocks, with good feed about and plenty of water.

We passed to-day many exhibitions of bare rock, evidentlyintumescencies and not dislocated fragments, of the massivegranite crust, in low positions, each as the lower part of hillsides, or in the valley flats; and in fact have done so on formeroccasions which I have not recorded; but I record the fact here,as an evidence both of the thinness of the sedimentary rocks andsoils with which the granite is covered throughout this country,and of its necessary corollary, that the slope and form of theundulation of the granite approximately conform to those of theactual surface soils—a fact of some importance in thephysical theory of our planet, and nowhere else perhaps soextensively and plainly exhibited as in this district;nevertheless, even here the question how many of the lake valleysoccupy fissures, and how many occupy only depressions orundulations, which the granite assumed in its primevalconsolidation by cooling, is not of such easy determination; butI think it may safely be affirmed that the great lake chainoccupies a line of fissures, and that many of the smaller chainsand rich alluvial valleys occupy not lines of fissure, but simplydepressions of the granite crust.

June 24.—Having now ascertainedthe extension of bald bills, water, and of a more or less goodcountry and grass for more than 30 miles due south of the rock atwhich I left the remainder of the party, I thought it expedientnot to extend our excursion any farther, as it would probablynecessitate a farther detention of the whole party at the rock,to recruit the 3 horses which we had taken with us, after ourreturn to it; this morning, therefore, I resolved to make astraight course back to the rock, which we reached, after a longride, about dark this evening.

Our return route lay altogether to the eastward of our outwardroute, and traversed a continuous alluvial plain of a rich mellowappearance, thinly covered with a short stunted species ofwoorock and bushes; with a considerable quantity of salt-bush,but little grass. The deficiency of grass in this case, as inother extensive tracts of apparently rich land which have beentraversed by the expedition, I attribute entirely to two causes,namely,—

1st. The saturation of the soil during a portion of the rainyseason, resulting from the deficiency of natural drainage.

2ndly. The absence of a grass-eating indigenous fauna.

In fact few countries which I have ever visited appear to meto disiderate systematic artificial drainage so much as thisfertile district does; and I fear that until artificial drainagebe systematically applied, only a small fraction of its potentialfertility will be available for the purposes of agriculturalindustry and commerce.

How far close feeding by sheep and horses will extend the areaof the natural grasses, or rather of some few valuable species ofthem, and develop a thick growth of them, experience will prove.For my part, I anticipate a considerable improvement by thesemeans.

We found the party all right on our reaching the camp, andthat Messrs. Robinson and Edwards had, agreeably to my requestbefore leaving them, devoted the 23rd and 24th inst., to makingan excursion to the northward for the purpose of ascertaining ifwater was to be found in that direction. They reported that theyhad made a distance of about 20 miles N. by W. principally over agood alluvial soil covered with salt-bush and grass, that theyhad found neither bald hills nor water, except less than onepannikin-full of very muddy water, which they had got out of ahole on the surface of the clay, which was all they had betweenthem for tea and breakfast the next morning; that the country tothe north, when they turned back, appeared more broken and hillythan what they had traversed, and also to rise slightly from thesouthward.

June 25 and 26.—The 5 horseswhich our two detached parties had taken with them, and whichwere of course the strongest of required to rest these two daysto recover the effects of their extra work.

June 27.—I am convinced that itwould be very dangerous, in the present state of our horses, toattempt again to penetrate to the eastward or north ward of thisrock until the fall of such heavy rain as would certainly leavesurface water on the alluvial soils in those directions, and asweeks or mouths may elapse before such rain will fall, I havedetermined therefore to proceed towards the south coast, in whichdirection I think it more likely to find water at this season ofthe year than to the northward, and I consider it it verydesirable that the character of the belt of country, about 150miles in width, intervening between this granite district and thecoast should be ascertained, as the profitable occupation of thecountry in which we now are for pastoral purposes must depend onits facility of access to the shores of the Australian Bight, itsdistance from the western coast being too great to admit of itsprofitable occupation, under a system of the land transport ofits imports and exports, from and to the latter. Accordingly at10.30. a.m. we started on a direct course towards the nearestpoint of the coast, and travelled until 1.30 p.m., when Hallbeing suddenly taken very ill with a dizziness or swimming in thehead, which compelled him to lie down, being unable for a timeeven to stand upright, I was compelled to halt at a bald hillwhich fortunately happened to be near at hand when this occurred,and at which, as usual, we found plenty of grass and water.Direct distance 9 miles S.E.

Our route was generally through a good alluvia soil, butintermixed occasionally with patches of sand-plain andthicket.

After dinner, Kowitch having observed from the top of the baldhill a native fire at a distance of about a mile, being desirousto get an interview with the natives, with a view to obtaininformation as to the country, and possibly to obtain theservices of one of them as a guide, we all, except Hall, whom weleft in charge of the camp, proceeded, well armed, in thedirection of the fire, towards which we approached as stealthilyas possible, to prevent the very possible contingency of thenatives discovering our approach before we should see them, andbolting from us.

To our disappointment, we found that the fire had been kindledonly by one native woman, who, with her little boy, an infant ofless than 5 years of age, whom she carried on her shoulder, wasdigging roots, her husband being at the time away opossumhunting, as far as we could make out from her signs andshouts.

The poor woman, of course, was dreadfully frightened at thesudden apparition of such monsters she evidently took us to be,and she immediately attempted to escape from us into a thicket,carrying her little boy on her shoulder, both herself and childbeing perfectly naked. However, being very anxious to have aparley with her, and if possible to get her husband to come toour tents, with difficulty we got her out of the thicket, and bymeans of signs, by occasionally pushing and pulling her by thearm, whilst Kowitch walked before her, and poured on her anincessant but I believe perfectly unintelligible harangue,setting forth our benevolent intentions, we at length got her asfar as our camp fire, by the side of which she immediatelysquatted down, and remained a very frightened and involuntaryguest for about an hour.

Here she seemed gradually to recover her self-possession, andtalked very urgently to Kowitch, though little to hisedification, as he was able to understand nothing of what sheintended to express.

We tried in vain many times to make her taste our bread, tea,sugar, and meat, but she would neither taste them herself norallow her child to do so, and when at last we allowed her to goback to her fire, making her take these things in her hand, assoon as she got about 100 yards from the hut she flung them allaway.

I think she was even more frightened at the sight of ourhorses, near which unintentionally we passed in bringing her tothe tent, than at ourselves, as she shuddered in the most evidentmanner when she suddenly saw the first of them within a fewyards, rushing away from it into a thicket, and telling Kowitchin the most vehement manner that she could not go near such a bigmonster.

Our object in compelling her to come to our tents was a hopethat, if we would conciliate her with food, she might bring herhusband to us, and that Kowitch might succeed in getting from himsome information as to the country between this and the coastwhich might prove of use to us.

June 28.—Started at 9.30. a.m.,and at 0.15 p.m. camped at another large bald hill. Directdistance 8 miles S.E. Country travelled, partly alluvial plains,partly sand-plains, and thickets.

Although we have travelled to-day only about 9½ miles, yet,for two hours after our arrival here, some of the horses began tofeed, all preferring to rest; another proof of the weak conditionto which the innutritious withered state of the grass at thisseason of the year has reduced them all. In there present stateof condition we shall not be able to travel more than 3 hours perday, but I hope that, when we get near the south coast, we shallfind the spring of the grass much further advanced and that ourhorses will then somewhat recover their lost strength.

In consequence of the 7 days rest which the horses have solately had, and of the shortness of the two days' journeys whichthey have since made, I thought it necessary to make a shortjourney this morning. Accordingly we started at 8.45 a.m. and at11 a.m., reached a very extensive bald hill, at which weencamped. Direct distance 7 miles S. E.

Our route lay through thickets and sand-plains for about threemiles, the remainder of it being through light alluvial land onwhich however, there is little or no grass.

From the top of this bald hill an extensive view of thesurrounding country can be obtained, showing many bare rocks tothe north and north-west, and a hilly rising country in thatdirection, as well as towards the east. From, south-east tosouth-west the country is flat and low. No lakes can be seen.From the top of this hill, but I doubt not that they must lie inthe low country to the southward.

June 30.—In consequence of theweak state of the horses, and of the dryness of the country, forstill no drop of water can be found except in cavities on thesurface of the bare rocks, I do not think it prudent to leave thecountry in which these are exhibited, and consequently havealtered our course to-day to south by west, in which direction Iexpect to shift along their southern margin. Started at 9.20a.m., and at 2.20 p.m. stopped at another rather extensiveexhibition of bare rock, on a hill side, where we found plenty ofwater but very poor feed for the horses, which are nearly knockedup by their five hours' work. Direct distance 15 miles S. by W.Country traversed, about 2 miles thicket, 4 or 5 milessand-plain, the remainder alluvial soil, generally of a lighttexture.

[VII.Journal: July]

July 1.—The horses are now soweak, owing to the withered state of the grass, that I think itwould not be prudent either to make the south coast, or toattempt to return by a more northern route than our outwardjourney, as, in the latter case, we shall, still run much risk ofbeing without water; I have therefore again altered our course,and now intend to steer south-west for some days, assuming thatwe shall still be within the limits of the bare rock district,and afterwards to adopt a still more westerly route until wereach, the limits of the settled country.

No winter climate can be conceived more delightful than theweather which we have experienced since leaving Tampin; sincewhich we have only once had a rain which could wet a personthrough, either by day or by night; but have had generally warmcloudy weather, with occasional outbursts of sun shine, andsometimes, but rarely two or three days of bright sunshine, withfrosty nights.

Notwithstanding the very small quantity of rain which hasactually fallen hitherto this winter, I believe any grain cropwould have grown well throughout it, on deeply ploughed land, forI think that the atmospheric moisture would quite suffice, tokeep any of the cerealia in in a state of vigorous growth onwell-ploughed land, which had been once saturated with a day'srain, and that the warmth and moisture of the atmosphere, and thelimited quantity of sunshine, would keep any young corn in astate of vigorous growth.

It still remains to be proved by experience whether this be anexceptionally dry winter for this district, or merely an averageone; the remainder of the annual rainfall which, on theoreticalgrounds, may be anticipated to be very small for the latitude,being received in violent thunder-storms during the summer.

I am inclined to believe that the latter is the more probablehypothesis, but nevertheless I do not doubt, that the winterrainfall, coupled with the general warmth and humidity of theatmosphere, will be found sufficient for the most successfulcultivation of the cerealia.

As two of the horse's strayed away during the night severalmiles on. our track, we did not start until noon; and at 4 p.m.we camped at another extensive rock, with plenty of water andgrass such as it is. Direct distance 12 miles south-west.

We passed many bare rocks to-day, principally on the northside of our track, and from the tops of the higher ones weobtained extensive views of the low flat country to the south andsouth-west of us, in which I have no doubt that the chain oflakes lies. About one-half our route was through alluvial plains,the remainder was over rocky ground, in the vicinities of theexposed rocks, and through sand-plains, which generally showed agood sprinkling of small rounded pebbles of ironstone on theirsurface.

My mare Beauty knocked up to-day, and had to be left about 2miles short of our camping ground. I shall send back for herto-morrow morning, but I fear that she will he of little serviceto us during the remainder of our journey.

July 2.—Again altered our courseto W. S. W., in order both to keep within the margin of the barerocks, where alone water is to be found, and to make our way backto the settled districts as directly as possible, all the horsesbeing now so weak that I cannot reckon on doing more than 7 or 8miles per day, at which rate we shall run our provisions veryshort before we get in, and apparently we have no prospect ofeking them out with game until we get nearer the settleddistricts. Direct distance 14 miles W. S. W.

July 3.—Started at 9 a.m. and at1.30 p.m. camped at another extensive bare rock with plenty ofwater on it, and with the usual complement of withered grass andrushes around it. Direct distance 11 miles W. S. W.

The horses travelled very badly to-day. Beauty again knockedup, although carrying only my riding saddle, and after pullingand driving her with the greatest difficulty for the last hour ofthe journey, we were obliged to unsaddle and leave her about onequarter of a mile short of the camp, from which distance she wasgot in late in the afternoon. Three of the other horses also weredriven through with difficulty, being quite knocked up when theygot in. Traversed a good deal of thicket intermixed with alluvialplains.

July 4.—In consequence of thehorses being so weak, I resolved to rest here all day, which Ihope will somewhat recruit them; also to throw away all theoilskin covers foe the packs, which so far, from the absence ofrain, have been of little service to us, and judging from thesettled appearance of the sky, I think it not likely that weshall much require them during our return journey. In factRobinson, Edwards, and Hall, all confidently think that the rainyseason in this district is passed, and certainly the weather ismore like that of October or November in the York district thanthat of July. More agreeable winter weather could hardly beconceived. Future experience will show whether this is anexceptional winter for this country, or, being an average one, atwhat season of the year the principal rain-fall usually takesplace.

This agreeable weather, combined with the weak state of ourhorses, which compels us to limit our travelling to 3 or 4 milesper day (in which however all, except one, walk the wholedistance) renders our journey, as far as fatigue and hardship toourselves are concerned, very easy work, and as we have not yetconsumed more than half of our rations, and being now on ourdirect course to York, which, making a liberal allowance for theweakness of our horses, I hope to reach in five weeks, we stillenjoy a full supply of provisions.

We still are unable to procure any game whatever, althoughconstantly on the look out for it. From the top of this rock, atsunrise this morning, we observed the fog lying in long lines inmany localities from west by north to east; which lines of fog Itake to indicate the lake-valley.

July 5.—This morning, in orderto reduce the loads of our horses as far as possible, and itbeing not probable that we shall require them, as their first setof shoes are still good, and not nearly worn out, we threw awayall the spare horse shoes, the total weight of which was about 70lbs. Started at 10 am, and at 0.15 p.m. halted in some good feed.Direct distance 6 miles W. by S.

We passed a great number of bare rocks, generally very littleelevated above the surrounding ground, but some of them coveringperhaps 10 acres; the remainder of our route was pretty equallydivided between alluvial soil, and sand-plains; the country beingstill as dry and dusty as before. At about 4 miles from thismorning's camp my mare Beauty again knocked up, lying down on theroad, and refusing to proceed, although carrying only my emptysaddle. As I see that there is no hope of my getting her on intoYork, I abandoned her where she lay down the second time. I haveno doubt that with rest she will recover her strength, and I hopethat she will find her way back to York, in the course of a monthor two.

Poppet also, a mare supplied by Messrs. Phillips and Co., wasmuch knocked up to-day, and I fear that we shall not take her inwith us.

It is now evident that our journeys must be restricted to 6 or7 miles per day, until we get into much more nutritious feed,than any which our horses have had for the last month; but, as westill have provisions sufficient for two months consumption, andshall probably be able to get kangaroo when we reach 150 miles ofYork, our present distance being about 300 miles. I am not atpresent under any anxiety, with reference to food; but these veryshort distances make the time pass very tediously, the excitementof novelty and of the vague hopes and expectations which weindulged at starting, being now exhausted, and as our homewardtrack is only some 50 miles to the south of our outward track, wecannot even expect to see any country materially different fromwhat we have already seen.

Up to this date we have experienced none of the hardships,which so frequently fall to the lot of explorers, and upon which,in proportion as they are painful in the actual, one is apt tolook back in the past, with somewhat of pride and satisfaction,and unless all our horses should knock up, and have to beabandoned, I trust we shall get back to York without any greatmeasure of them. We have the most delightful weather which can beconceived, an abundant ration, and from the weakness of ourhorses, very short hours of travel. I should find the time lessheavy on my hands, my few books and the conversational powers ofmy companions being now quite used up, if our daily travellingdistances were doubled.

In the afternoon Kowitch and myself walked back along ourtrack to where my mare had been left. We found her feeding nearthat spot, but so weak that I do not intend to attempt to takeher on with us.

July 6.—In consequence of havingrested one day during the past week, and of having made such veryshort journeys during the other days, I thought it necessary tomake a short journey to-day, although Sunday. Accordingly westarted at 11 a.m., and at 2 p.m. camped at another bare rockwhere we found better feed than usual. Travelling distance 9miles, direct distance 8 miles W. by S.

We observed to-day, for the first time during many weeks, afew fine tall blackboys, (xanthorroeas) on the upper part of asand-plain.

We passed many bare rocks with grass about them, and about onehalf our route was over alluvial soils.

In the evening read the Church Service for the day.

July 7.—Started at 8.15 a.m.,and at 0.20 p.m. camped at a bare rock, with water, but very poorfeed about. Direct distance 11 miles W. 1½ S.

The weakness of Spy and Monarch compelled us to halt at thisbare rock, as there appeared to be no prospect that we shouldfind better feed within any distance that they would be able totravel. We passed one large dry lake bed, which did not appear toform a link of any chain of lakes. Our route lay mostly oversand-plain.

In a gully, cut 5 or 6 feet, and draining the lower side of aextensive sand-plain, a good section of the geological formationof the country was exhibited, as the solid granite was shown atthe bottom; on it a fine, hard marl, or sandstone, having athickness of 2 or 3 feet and a dull white color; then a gravellysoil of a light red color, containing pebbles of ironstone, andhaving a thickness of about one foot; this being the surfacesoil.

The white colored rock in this locality, and generally to theeastward of this, (which rock I think is more correctlydescribed, as a marl than as a sandstone,) is no doubtgeologically identical with the dull whitish sandstone which Ihave described in former part of this Journal, as a rock ofundoubtedly marine origin, and bedded immediately on the graniteall through the country eastward of the Avon. I have little doubtthat the rock described by Flinders as forming clifts on thewestern shores of the Australian Bight, which attain an elevationof 4 or 500 feet, and which have since been described by Eyre asa chalk, is only an extension and great vertical development ofthis rock.

The fact of its texture here much resembling that of a marl,whereas near the Avon it is lithologically a common sandstone Iascribe to the large proportion of feldspar contained in thegranite of this country, and on the assumption that this reallyis the rock which forms the white cliffs of the western shores ofthe Bight, I conclude that the granite has there dipped farbeneath the surface, and that the existing surface in consequencehas a very poor soil.

July 8.—Start at 8.45 a.m., andat 1 p.m. camp at another bare rock, with, poor feed about it.Direct distance 11 miles west.

The greater part of the country traversed to-day issand-plain.

Monarch and Spy very nearly knocked up again to-day, and onlywith much trouble were they brought on to the camp. I fear thatthey will not travel with us many more miles, even without anyload whatever.

July 9.—Started at 9 a.m., andat 1.30 p.m. reached another bare rock, near a dry lake, withplenty of samphire in the lake, and excellent grass about therock. Direct distance 17 miles W.

The greater part of our route again to-day has been over asand-plain, here and there broken by wooded hills, mostly cappedwith ironstone. Monarch, who carried only 1 empty riding saddleknocked up, and was left about 6 miles from the camp, and Spy,who also carried 2 riding saddles, also knocked up, and was leftone mile from camp—in both cases being pushed on as far asit was possible to get them.

We observed several native fires on the north side of ourtrack to-day, and about 4 p.m. when all of us were very tired,and apparently had no prospect of getting water or grassto-night, very fortunately we were accosted by three natives, whoapproached within about 300 yards of us, and standing there,shouted that they were mena men, pronouncing the word 'men' asdistinctly as possible.

I immediately despatched Kowitch alone to them, fearing thatif more of us went towards them, they might be frightened and runaway, and I was very happy to observe that he had not muchdifficulty in making himself understood by them.

He soon learnt that one of them had been to Lake Dambling,near Kojunup, and another had once been to Comining, Mr Smith'sstation; that both had seen white men and sheep, and had tasteddamper and tea, and that other black fellows had seen our outwardtrack. On making known to them that we were searching for waterand grass for our horses to-night, they readily offered to takeus to both which they accomplished in a distance of about 2miles.

It was very interesting to observe the high spirits into whichthis friendly meeting with these three natives put Kowitch, andthe animated and most noisy conversation which he and theysustained, not only during the short distance they guided us, butat least up to midnight after arrival at our camp, where theyspent the night.

We of course entertained them most hospitably on tea, damper,and pork, not so much in payment for the really valuable servicewhich they rendered in taking us to good water and feed, which weprobably should not have found without them, and at a time whenall our horses are showing signs of knocking up, as with a viewto conciliate their good-will and services to the squatters whomI hope to see dispersed over this country in the course of thenext 2 or 3 years, and to whom it will be in their power torender valuable services.

As it may facilitate the finding of these natives to those whomay shortly send their flocks out into this country, I recordtheir native names, which are as follows: Kumbar, Dandokoert, andKiddymurrin.

July 10.—This morning Mr.Robinson and my self, accompanied by Kiddymurrin and Dandokoertwent back to fetch up Monarch and Spy, which we accomplishedabout noon, though, the former, who had wandered about thegreater part of the night on barren hills, quite destitute offeed, was driven in with much difficulty, but I hope by restinghere all to-day and to-morrow, we may yet be able to get them andall the other horses back to York with very easy stages, anddriving two or three of the weaker ones without any loadswhatever.

An excellent sheep-station might be formed at this rock, thenative name of which is Kicharring, there being plenty of grassabout it, and plenty of samphire about the lake Moonberry, which,as far as I can understand the natives, or rather Kowitch can doso, is one of a chain running from north to south, (but upon thispoint it is difficult to make the natives understand the purportof the question) and not a solitary lake.

The former version is the more probable, and conforms to myobservation of the features of the neighbourhood, and also to myexperience all through this country.

As two of these natives are to go with us as far as Mr Smith'sstation, I hope, by dint of patient enquiry andcross-examination, to obtain from them much useful informationrelative to the climate and prominent natural features of thiscountry, before the conclusion of our journey.

July 11.—After breakfast, myselfand one of the natives started to explore the lakes, and toascertain whether they form a chain or not. In a walk of about 3hours we crossed 6 or 7 lakes, trending to north and north-eastin the ascending direction, and to the southward in thedescending direction.

From a careful examination of the lakes and their margins, Iarrived at the following conclusions, namely:—

1st. Either from a gradual diminution in the mean rainfall, orfrom a slow secular uprising of the entire country, or moreprobably from both these causes combined; these lakes hold muchless water now than formerly. The conclusion is founded on thefollowing phenomena, namely:—

1st. Many of these lakes are now overgrown with samphirethrough their entire areas.

2nd. Others are overgrown with samphire throughout the centralportions of their areas, leaving between these and their banks anarrow margin, which is under water in some, but not in all,winters.

3rd. No one of these lakes contains any water whatever atpresent, but their floors are generally a dry, hard, and, wherethe soul is light, dusty as at midsummer; and the natives assertpositively that they will not have any water whatever thiswinter, the rainy season being over; but that they all containedwater last winter. Although it is impossible to obtain from thema positive and persistent reply to the questions whether thelakes being dry throughout the year be an usual or unusualphenomenon, from the general tenor of their replies, and theabsence of any expression to the effect that this has been anunusually dry winter, I am inclined to think it has not thatcharacter with them, and consequently that these lakes arefrequently dry the entire year.

4th. Intumescencies of the bare granite rock cross out in manypoints on the margins of these lakes, and the faces of these Ifound universally to be worn into shallow caves and cavities ofvaried forms, by the ripple of the lake waters; but, to enablesuch ripples to reach them, the water must formerly have had adepth of 7 or 6 feet in the central parts of the lakes, whereasboth the distribution of samphire and the testimony of thenatives alike show that the depth of water in them never in anywinter exceeds 8 or 10 inches, under existing conditions.

2nd. The granite crops out, either in the bank or very closebehind the banks, of all these lakes, and in three or fourlocalities about each lake. The granite, as we have alsoelsewhere ever found to be the case* holding water at this seasonof the year in the cavities of its surface, and being surroundedwith a larger or smaller margin of grass, and one or more nativewells, holding permanent water, existing in the earth-filledcavities of each rock.

3rd. My former statement of the dullish white coloredfine-grained sandstone, sometimes approaching, as here, to a marlin texture, and mechanical character, immediately overlying thegranite and underlying the red colored soils, whether schists orclays, sands or gravels, derived from them, is fully confirmed bythe sections exhibited in various localities of the cliffs orbanks of these lakes, which I carefully examined, with specialreference to this point. Further, that both the former and thelatter are bedded conformably to the existing undulating surfacesof the granite.

4th. The entire country has a considerable slope from thenorthward, the northern banks of each of these lakes beinginvariably the highest, and when exhibiting the granite, thatgranite being the most water-worn by the ripples of the formerhike surfaces.

5th. The absence of rivers, gullies, and other natural waterchannels, is to be ascribed, not to a want of slope in thesurface of the country, or the porosity of soil, (for the poroussoils here cover a very small fraction of the surface), butexclusively to the very small rainfall.

Since writing the above, I have ascertained from our three newnative guides, of whom one has been actually to the south coast,and the other two a considerable portion of the way towards it,that bare rocks are to be found only for a distance of two days'journey south of this, and that the country thence to the coastis sandy, poor, grassless, and lakeless, from which testimony,combined with the observations of Flinders and Eyre on the cliffsof the Bight, I infer that the granite gradually dips from thisparallel towards the south, and that the depression has beenfilled—

1st. With a great vertical thickness of the chalkywhite-colored marl or sandstone, which was undoubtedly depositedbefore any portion of the granite, from which its materials werederived, had reached the surface of the ocean, and before thewaters of the ocean obtained (from whatever source) those saltsof iron with which the red sedimentary rocks, whether schists andconglomerates, or soils derived from them, have been colored.

2nd. With these same red-colored schists and conglomerates, orwith a soil derived from them.

The hypothesis of the unbroken granite crust slowly dippingtowards the south is confirmed both by the testimony of thesenatives that the bare granite hills extend, and increase innumber, so far as they have any knowledge of the country, to thenorth of this, and by the observation of Mr Austin as to theirextension towards the north in the line of country traversed bythe exploring expedition under his command in 1854. The nativename of the lake near which we slept these two nights is

July 12.—Started at 11 a.m., andat 2 p.m. camped by the side of another lake, of which the nativename is Wallwalshibby, and on some bare rock, with a fairquantity of grass about it, and plenty of samphire on the lake.Direct distance 10 miles. Country traversed, principallysand-plains, with a considerable quantity of coarse grass on themWe again passed several lakes; all dry, and covered withsamphire.

Started at 9.40 a.m., and at 2 p.m. camped at another veryopen hill side, exhibiting many small intumesencies of thegranite, and covered with excellent grass for the horses; the oldgrass having been burnt during last summer. The native name ofthe hill is Budarding.

Our direct distance made to-day is 10 miles W. The countrytraversed is principally sand-plain, with much coarse grass andother herbage on it, and many lakes in its depressions, of whichtwo contained water of a depth of 1 or 2 inches; the remainderwere dry, and covered with samphire.

This morning we had for breakfast 2 ducks, which Kowitch shotlast evening, being the first ducks killed by any of the partysince we left York; and we all enjoyed them not a little, as weare getting rather tared of our unvarying diet of cold salt porkand damper.

Our horses travelled better to-day than for the last 3 week's,having evidently benefitted by the many day's rests which theyhave latterly had, and I hope that by restricting our journeys to10 or 11 miles per day, and by putting on the three weakest ofour horses the empty saddles only, we shall be able to take allin, except the three already abandoned. This is much more than afortnight since I expected to accomplish.

This evening read the Church Service for the day to all theparty.

To-day we learnt from the three natives who are accompanyingus to Mr Smith's station, and whose replies to the question werepositive and satisfactory, that the lakes in this neighbourhoodnever overflow from one into another; but that each receives, andretains until evaporated, the drainage of the sur roundingcountry; which fact furnishes further evidence of the smallnessof the annual rainfall here; as a depth of 3 feet of water wouldgenerally make any of these lakes overflow info the lakeadjacent; and it cannot he objected that much water may bereceived into the lake-basins, and there lost by soakage into thesubsoil, as the floors of many, in fact of most of these lakesare imporous red or white clays, and the subsoil under thesefloors is generally a very hard and compact rock, composed ofsmall pebbles of granite, bedded in a tenacious dark red clay,and I apprehend very imporous.

With reference to the very important question of the supply ofsweet and good water to be obtained by well-sinking all throughthis singular country, it being evident that, for 8 or 9 monthsof every year from the defect of surface water and of all naturalsprings, the flocks, which I anticipate will occupy this countryin a few years, must depend entirely on well water, and thereforethat the distribution of water within the soil is a problem ofpeculiar interest, I will here briefly record my opinion,namely,

1st. That good water can be stored up only in those cavitiesand rugosities of the buried portion of the long sloping surfacesof the intumescencies or undulations of the granitic crust, whichform the bills, both soil-covered and bare or bald, of thecountry, through which (cavities and rugosities) in every rainyseason, the drainage of both the exposed and soil-covered face oftha granite flows (into some lower receptacle orreservoir), which here is a valley containing either a chainof lakes, or an isolated lake; in the latter case being correctlytermed a basin, and not a valley.

2nd. That all water obtained in these ultimate receptacles ofdrainage must be salt; because the subsoils of these must containthe salt brought down into them annually, for countless ages, bythe drainage from the above-mentioned higher portions of thegranitic surface, as those salts must be left in the soil in eachsummer's evaporation of the drainage of the preceding winter.

Now there is no doubt that sodium is a constituent of allprimitive granite, and that the granite of Western Australiacontains this element in comparatively large quantity. Hence, onthe most obvious and substantial theoretical grounds, thesubstrata of the undrained valley bottoms of this country wouldbe inferred to contain much salt, and experience, in the onlycase in which the matter was tested by us, fully confirmed suchan inference; for Hall having sunk a hole about 18 inches deep inthe floor of the lake at which we camped on the, and allowed itto fill by infiltration, hoping thereby to get clear water inlieu of the liquid mud which covered the lake floor, succeededindeed in getting clear water, but it was as salt as thestrongest brine.

In fact here, as everywhere else in this colony, a mass ofsoil, of whatever texture, which is so situated as to adjacentimporous rocks that water will soak into, but cannot drain orpercolate through, it, is sure to abound in salt; and as there isan annual drainage or percolation into, but no drainage orpercolation through the soil-strata of the wide valleys and lakechains of this country, it is evident that these strata mustreceive and retain all the soluble salts contained in the surfaceof the exposed granite annually disintegrated, when the wateritself has been evaporated by the summer sun.

Such being the physical elements of the problem, the futuresettlers of this district most limit their search for good waterto the upper portions of the hills, (or intumescencies of thegranite) whether earth covered or bare, and having studied thecontour of the bare portions of the rock, and that of the slopingground which conceals the lower portions of every intumescence ofthe granite, form the best conjecture which may be passable as tothe position of the concavities and rugosities of the surface ofthe granite buried under the soil, and sink his well directlyinto the computed centre of one of these.

From my observation of the fact that one or more of theshallow native wells exists in the vicinity of each rock allthrough this country, and from my estimate of the probablerugosity of the soil-covered portion of every bald hill-side, Ianticipate that a little experience and good common sense willenable the settlers of this district to find inexhaustiblesupplies of water in the margin of every bare rock and atcomparatively trifling expense, both as to first sinking (thesoil in the margin of the rocks being always light and porous),and as to the subse quent lifting of the water for the use of theflocks and herds and perhaps experience will show that any littleexpense which has to be incurred in these two operations is morethan recouped to the stock owners of this country by the superiorcontrol over their stock, more particularly over all horses andcattle, and their consequent greater tameness and tractability,which the absence of all surface water for the greater and hotterpart of every year, will enforce on the latter, by compellingthem to come in to some well, and there receive water from thehand of man, instead of being able to drink at some part remotefrom the habitation and sight of man.

In my opinion there can be no question that the manyadvantages and economies incidental to this enforced dailyapproach to, and reliance on, man, operating on the extensiveherds of horses and cattle which are likely to be fed in thiscountry, will much exceed in value the cost of artificialwatering, and I expect that every one who has had the misfortuneto possess large herds of horses or cattle scattered in asemi-wild state over an extensive country, will readily concur inthis opinion.

July 14.—Started at 8 a.m. andat 11.50 a.m., camped at a native well, called Churtmony, withfair feed about it, and several small lakes near it. Directdistance 11 miles west by north. Our entire route this day wasthrough a continuation of sand-plains, slightly broken here andthere by lakes and wooded valleys.

Monarch and Spy, although carrying only one riding saddleeach, could with difficulty be kept up in the rear of the train,and I expect that we must reduce our daily distance to 7 or 8miles, in order to take them on with us.

July 15.—Started at 8 a.m. and0.25 p.m. camped at a bare rock, with water and grass, of whichthe native name is Northa-nopine. Direct distance 12 miles west.About 8 miles of our route lay through sand-plains, of a lightyellow colour probably derived from feldspar, and of a texturewhich would dispose the soil to lead into a firm road under amoderate amount of traffic, and carrying, a considerable quantityof coarse grass and other herbage suitable for sheep and horses.In fact such is the prevailing character of all the sand-plainsin this country, and I have no doubt that they will provevaluable as sheep runs. The remainder of our route lay throughfine stiff alluvial land, admirably adapted to wheat growing.

I have omitted to record heretofore that the three natives whohave now accompanied us 4 days as guides to Smith's station, areperfectly naked, as are all the natives of this country, whichaffords a strong proof of the mildness of its winter climatesince, although the country is quite destitute of kangaroos, itabounds in opossums, dammars, and kangaroo rats from the skins ofwhich they might easily manufacture cloaks, if the climate weresuch as to render them essential to their health or comfort.

Since we have been accompanied by these three natives, I havebeen much impressed with a fact, which, having a strong bearingon the science of philology, and not having observed it recordedin the journals of other explorers, I here record, for theconsideration of any philologists into whose hands a copy of thisJournal may perchance fall, namely, that whilst the nativesinstantly repeat any and every English word, phrase, or shortsentence which may be addressed to them, with most marvellouscorrectness of pronunciation and intonation, and apparently withperfect facility, although without the most remote conception ofthe Import of any one of the words, Kowitch our York native, hasvery great difficulty in catching, and repeating not only shortsentences, but even single words, such as names of persons,places; and natural objects, uttered by them, and when I want toget the name of a place, a tree, or any other object, Kowitch hasto make them repeat the word several times before he can catch itand then evidently has to modify and amplify its parts not alittle before he can make it comprehensible and analagible to myear.

The fact is that these euphonious and well developed names,whether of persons or places, which appear in our own maps ofthis colony, and are adopted by the Europeans generally as thenative names of the same, have as small similitude to the genuineoriginal native names which they purport to be, as one of the nowthicket-covered hill-sides of this country has to what the samehill-sides may be one or two hundred years time, when coveredwith highly cultivated fields, gardens, vineyards, nurseries&c., or perhaps more nearly, such as the river Clyde inScotland, with its enormous and innumerable ships steamers,wharfs, and sea-walls of the present day, has to the same riverof two centuries ago, when a cutter of 20 or 30 tons burden couldwith difficulty be brought up it. What locking, dredging,canalizing, embanking, and walling have done to develop intoample and harmonious proportion many hundreds of streams inEurope and North America during the last two centuries, that thealphabet, grammar, and arts of writing and printing, and finallypoetry and literature in general, have done for the current ofhuman speech in all the nations of mankind which happily haveenjoyed the invaluable advantages. But few of those whose lot hasbeen cast under these happier auspices can adequately conceivethe vast measure of harmony, distinctness and what, for want of abetter term, I would designate as organic development, by whichtheir language even in its lowest forms, is separated from theshapeless utterences of the wild man, whose race for a thousandgenerations has possessed neither religion, laws, poetry,literature, social institutions, nor traditions, and who probablydoes not exchange words with fifty individuals beyond his ownwife and family in the course of twelve months.

The fact is that the alphabets of civilized nations ancientand modern, however defective they all have been, and are, havestill suffice to the great purpose of giving form, harmoniousdevelopment, and proportion to human speech; whilst religionlaws, poetry, and political institutions have given a permanencyto the parts of speech, from generation to generation whichcannot exist in the isolated families of wild men, who areutterly destitute of all those elements of social life, and whoseundeveloped speech consequently undergoes a greater mutation bythe combined action of degradation and capriciousintrosusception, within the life-time of one generation, thanthat of Greece has done in the twenty-five centuries which haveelapsed since Homer painted, in immortal lines, alike the heroeswho avenged and defended, the seduction of their frail and fairqueen and countrywoman.

July 16.—Started at 8. a.m., andat 0.30 p.m. camped at another and very extensive bare rock, ofwhich the native name is Moltthomy. Direct distance 10 miles W.by S.

This rock is surrounded by a great extent of excellentpasture, and in our route to day we have passed over three otherbare rocks, each surrounded by grass, about 4 miles of richalluvial soil, and as many of the loamy yellow-colouredsand-plains, which carry a vast quantity of grass and otherherbage suitable to sheep.

July 17.—Started at 8 a.m., andat 11.45 a.m. camped at a swamp, called Mondagee. Direct distance10 miles W. S. W.

Our route to-day has been entirely through forest land, ofwhich rather less than one-half has been a fine sticky stiffsoil, suitable to the cultivation of wheat—the remainderhas been of a lighter character. The forest consists of woorook,morrel and cedar.

In consequence of its having rained both last night and theprevious night, we found the ground rather boggy in some places,particularly in the vicinity of the rock which we quitted thismorning, and probably, if we had been without the guidance of thenatives, who know the country, we should have experienced somedifficulty from the circumstance.

The feed round this swamp is at present poorer than any whichour horses have had for some week's past, but probably there isgood feed on the swamp itself in the summer-time.

July 18.—Started at 9 a.m., and0.20 p.m. camped on a lofty and extensive hill, calledNullah-culling, on the top of which a considerable quantity ofbare rock comes to the surface.

This is one of the most picturesque and pleasant lookingcamping grounds which we have had during the Expedition, all theupper portion of the hill being very open, with a thin sprinklingof fine jam and oak, (casuarina) trees, distributed both in smallgroups and singly, and with an excellent bite of grass aroundthem. It would make a very eligible sheep-station, its distancefrom Comining being about miles..

Direct distance made to-day 9 miles W., of which distance 4lay over an excellent stiff red alluvial soil, the remainder oversand-plains, which, as usual, contain much grass and herbagesuitable to sheep.

Rain having fallen all yesterday afternoon and last night, thecountry has become very boggy, and in consequence, although wetravelled only 3 hours and 20 minutes, both ourselves and horseswere more than usually fatigued when we camped.

As we are now approaching so near the termination of ourexploration, our distance from Comining not exceeding miles, andsince throughout the entire country traversed by the Expeditionwe have invariably found grass around the base of every barerock, and water in the cavities of its surface I will heresuggest a solution of the phenomenon of the superior quality ofthe grass close around the margins of the bare rocks, as comparedwith that half-way down the hill-sides, or in the bottoms of thewide valleys which between the hills—a problem which wasfrequently before my mind.

The proportion of the mineral elements of agriculturalcontained in equal masses of granite increases with the depth oforiginal bedding of each block, or, in other words, the greaterthe depth of the bedding of any block of granite in the primevalfoundation of the granite crust, the greater the proportion ofthe mineral elements of agricultural fertility which it willcontain; the masses compared being taken in the same verticalcolumn.

Now it is evident that the existing soil around the margin ofany bald hill must be formed by a more recent disintegration of aportion of the rock's surface, than the subsoil of the samemargin, or than the surface soil at a greater distance from therock.

Therefore it must be formed from the disintegration of aportion of the rock which originally under lay that, from thedisintegration of which the more distant surface soil and theadjacent subsoil were derived; that is, from a portion of therock originally endowed with a larger proportion of the elementsof agricultural fertility.

But the existing surface soil around the margins of the vastbare rocks is not, in fact, derived from a richer quality ofgranite, than that from its subsoil and the more distant surfacesoil were derived, but in the former case less time has beenafforded to the winter rains to wash out of it, and down into theneighbouring valley bottom, all the soluble salts formed in thedisintegration of the minute fragments of granite which primarilyconstituted the soil than in the latter case; therefore bothbeing compounded of better original materials, and from thosebetter materials, have been less worn out or expended, thesurface soil around the margin of every bare rock should be, asour observation shewed us that it universally is, better andricher than the sample at a considerable distance, say half amile from the margin of the same rock.

On the principles herein propounded, it is evident that thewide alluvial bottoms of the undrained valleys, which havereceived and retained perhaps for hundreds of thousands of yearssoluble salts washed down into them from the exposed surfaces ofadjacent projections of rock, must be extremely rich in thoseelements of fertility, and I feel confident that experience willprove them to be so.

But in ascribing the fertility of the alluvial soils of thewide plains and valleys to the cause above defined let me not besupposed to ascribe to such agency the mechanical formation ofthese alluvials. This must be ascribed to oceanic action duringthe ages which probably were expended in the slow emergence ofthis country from the sea, during which I believe, for, reasonselsewhere stated, that its contour was very similar to that whichit now possesses.

Under these conditions, the finer particles of matter derivedfrom the detrition and disintegration of the masses of rockprojections above the general level of the floors of the ocean,would be held in suspension by the waters of the ocean for a timeand finally deposited at a greater or less distance from theirsites of derivation, there forming fine grained strata of clay,whilst the coarser particles would form a gravelly soil round themargin of each such projecting mass of rock.

Viewed under these aspects, the observed distribution of thesoils of this rich district is entirely comformable to the viewswhich I have in other parts of this Journal ventured to propoundof the geology of the entire country as far as the red-stone faceof the Darling Range, particularly to an opinion which I havepreviously expressed that its elevation from beneath the oceanwas due to no topical elevating forces, as these would certainlyhave left some evidence of that action in tilted and anddislocated rocks and strata, but is to be ascribed solely to arelatively slow rate of contraction of the earth's radius, inthis portion of its surface, as compared with its rate ofcontraction in other portions of the sphere, and which would ofcourse have the same effect of relatively elevating the surfacehere, as a positive elevatory force of a topical nature.

When sufficient geological sections of this country to afforda satisfactory basis for an estimate of the mean thickness of thesedimentary rocks shall have been obtained—and, as I haveelsewhere stated, I believe their mean thickness to be singularlysmall, and on the actual track of the Expedition to be much lessthan 100 feet, increasing to the southward, and diminishing tothe northward,—this country will probably afford togeologists more ample and satisfactory data than any otherequally extensive portion of the surface of the earth for thediscussion and approximate solution of a problem of greatinterest, specially in geology, but also in physical sciencegenerally, and the theories of the gradual and successivedevelopment of the existing physical conditions of this planet,namely, the amount of the undulations and prominences of thegranite crust of the earth, at the epoch of its consolidationfrom a state of fusion due to heat, because it will be easy toestimate from such date what must have been the originalelevation of the existing prominancy of rock, over the adjacentdepressions of its surface, which are now filled by sedimentaryrocks and the surface soil.

July 19.—Started at 8 a.m., andat 4.10 p.m. camped on a rocky piece of ground, with a fairquantity of grass, but with no water within a mile to whichdistance we had to send the natives to fetch water for our tea.Travelling distance 22 miles, direct distance 16 miles, as thenatives led us by a very circuitous route to avoid thickets.About one-third of the route traversed was stiff and apparentlyrich alluvial soil; the remainder was divided between sand-plainsand thickets.

At about 7 miles from last night's camp, from the highest partof an extensive sand-plain which we crossed, we observed MountHampton, of which the native name is Boojarring, bearing north25d. W. by compass, distant 20 miles; it being by far the mostlofty and conspicuous hill which we have observed in the wholejourney, Borayukkin and Tampin bearing from same point W. 7d. S.and W. 15d. S. at apparent distances of about 18 and 25 milesrespectively.

This has perhaps been the most fatiguing journey which we havehad during the Expedition which is due not only to the distancetravelled but to the stiffness of the ground, which made thewalking very heavy.

At about 12 miles from our camp of last night we came upon ourtrack made in this sixth day of our outward journey, at adistance of about 4 miles from our fifth camp.

In discussing this day the question of the cause of theextreme scarcity of the larger game, such as kangaroos, emus, andgnows, in this rich and extensive district, we arrived at thefollowing conclusion, which I here mention, as it may be ofinterest to those who study the distribution of animal life onthe surface of the globe, namely, that this scarcity is dueentirely and solely to the absence of water in this country in alarge portion of the year, and to the necessity thereby imposedon the fauna of the country to come to the native wells to drink,which gives the natives such facility of destroying them, thatthey have completely extirpated the kangaroos, and have reducedthe emus and gnows to a very scanty number.

This theory is confirmed by the observed fact of the abundanceof the kangaroo and emu in every portion of the colony, at theintroduction of the white man and his flocks, where largesurfaces of permanent water exist, and also is negativelysupported by the unquestionable certainty that, if these speciesof game had existed ever so abundantly in the district at theepoch of the first immigration of man, (not the game-law-lovingAnglo Saxon, but wild black men), the latter would infalliblyhave reduced them to their present limited numbers, in the courseof a few years, or, at most, of a generation or two, availingthemselves of the facility of destroying them, which the scarcityof surface water at many seasons of the year would give them.

July 20.—In consequence of therebeing no water for our horses, and that for ourselves being at adistance of a mile from our camp, and very muddy, we werecompelled to move on this morning, adding another to the manySundays on which we have been under the necessity oftravelling.

Started at 10 a.m., and at 1.20 p.m. camped at a large baldrock, called Water-biddin, which we passed on the forenoon of ourfifth day's outward journey. Direct distance—9 mileswest.

There is an excellent grass on every side of this rock.

I learnt from our guides to-day that the native name of MountBayly is Torlgoring.

From the top of this hill Borayukkin and Tampin bearrespectively W. 12d. S. and W. 43d. S, true, at apparentdistances of 9 miles and 27 miles.

July 21.—Started at 9 a.m., andat 0.15 p.m. camped at Borayukkin. Direct distance 9 miles W.12d. S.

Nearly the entire route to-day has been through alluvial soil,in general thinly covered with timber woorock, and morrel.

In the course of this day's journey we had considerabledifficulty in getting the horses through several boggy places,and if their loads had not been very light we should have beenobliged to make considerable circuits to avoid such places.

Borayukkin is a very fine massive rock with an excellent sheeprun about it, and the rock on which we camped on our second nightfrom Tampin, on the outward journey, and of which the native nameis Mullocutty, is about 4 miles from it, bearing E. 40d S. bycompass.

I have carefully examined the surface of this hill, as well asthat of most of the hills (bare rocks,) which we have passed orencamped at during the past fort night, and have found them alldestitute of those wavy striae which I have elsewhere recorded asbeing exhibited on the surface of all the bare rocks 100 miles tothe eastward of this.

July 22.—Started at 9.30 a.m.,and at 2.10 p.m., camped at a small pond of water in a gumforest, with grass at a distance of about one half mile.Travelling distance 14 miles; direct distance 12 miles N.W. byW.

At about 300 yards from the rock at Borayukkin, on its westside, we found the remains of a bush-hut erected by the Messrs.Dempster in their expedition two winters since, and we followedtheir track, bearing north-west, about 7 miles, when we left itto our right, on a clear piece of grassy ground, where thenatives shewed us the spot at which a party of white men haderected a tent, and remained for two days about 8 or 9 yearsago.

Our route to-day was again principally through alluvialforest-covered land, and thickets, growing on a good alluvialsoil, as in fact many descriptions of thicket appear always togrow on.

From this camp, according to the shewing of our native guides,Tampin bears S.W., Narimbeen W. and Wardering N.W. by W.

The natives tell us that we shall reach Narimbeen (about 3miles E. by S. from Mr Smith's station, Comining), by a sixhours' journey to-morrow—a consummation, which, with theusual impatience of the actual, and craving for a progressbearing us along to our ends, which marks the weakness of humannature for any particular enjoyment or occupation, such as rest,exercise, food, conversation, thought, &c., we all ardentlydesire; although we have experienced little of hardships orfatigue, and have had much enjoyment in this expedition, forwhich I trust we shall all be sincerely grateful to a mercifulProvidence, which has watched over us; and although we shallprobably, ere long, look back with regret to the conclusion ofthis expedition, and earnestly wish to embark in another.

The country has been in places very boggy again to-day, and wehave had more or less gentle rain all day.

From the account of the natives, the Messrs. Dempsters came toBorayukkin from the northward, and proceeded from it toWardering, and thence to Comining.

Whilst the subject is on my mind, I would here respectfullysuggest that areas of 4 or 6 mile, square, of which the centresshall coincide with the highest point of each bald rock, bereserved as sites for future towns and suburban allotments aboutBorayukkin, Tampin, and Boojarring, to which latter rock, whichis by far the loftiest and most extensive of any which we havediscovered throughout the expedition, I have proposed to attachthe name of his Excellency Governor Hampton, and I would add tothis suggestion that in each case the entire area of bare rock bereserved for public purposes, the streets of the town being laidout around the margin of each rock.

Nothing could give a more unique and characteristic appearanceto the future towns of this country which undoubtedly is capableof maintaining an exceedingly dense agricultural population, anda wealthy landed aristocracy, than those massive and magnificentelevations of bare rock, projecting in their respective centreshigh above every structure raised by the hand of man, anddoubtless they would contribute no less to the health andenjoyment of their future populations, than to the beauty oftheir appearance.

July 23.—Started at 9 a.m., andat 4.30 p.m. to the great delight of all the party, reachedNarimbeen. Distance travelled 22 miles, direct distance 16 mileswest, the natives having taken us by a circuitous. route, as theyhave a very imperfect knowledge of this country, having only beenat Comining once in their lives, when they came into it from thenorth ward.

We were all very tired with our long walk, which, from theboggy character of many places, was very fatiguing.

Again passed a large proportion of alluvial forest land, butof a lighter colour, and apparently poorer quality than to theeastward, the timber being of woorock and morrel; we also passedtwo or three small patches of bare rock, with feed around, andthrough about 2 miles of thicket and as many of sand-plain, whichagain was of a far poorer quality than the sand-plains to theeastward, and more thickly covered with a coarse gravel of ironstone.

I observed to-day, for the first time for many weeks, asprinkling of fragments of quartz around the upper portion ofsame of the low small rounder hills in the alluvial forests.

July 24.—At 8 a.m. Mr Robinsonand myself walked over to Comining, Mr Smith's head station,distant 3 miles west by north. Here we had the pleasure offinding Mr W. Smith, and of getting some news as to the events ofthe world, during our 81 days' seclusion from it, though MrSmith's information as to the topics reached only to the earlypart of June, when he came out to this station, but he had oneIllustrated London News, of a later date than those which werereceived in the colony prior to our departure, which he mostkindly lent us, and which I enjoyed with no less zest than thatwith which we devoured a leg of mutton, which he also kindlypresented to us.

Mr Smith walked back with us to our camp at Narimbeen, andshowed me the figure 7 deeply cut on the stem of York gum,growing by the side of a gully on the north side of the south,which is the principal rock at Narimbeen, and distant from thenearest part of the margin of that rock about 100 yards. He alsotold me that the natives had shown him at a spot about 10 milesW. by S. from Narimbeen another tree similarly marked with afigure 6. I have no doubt that the figures designate respectivelythe 6th and 7th camp from York of Messrs. Roe and Moore in theirexpedition into this country made in the year 1836.

Note.—When on my return to PerthI brought the subject of the figures on these trees to Mr Roe'sattention, he kindly referred to his manuscript journal of theexpedition of 1836, and found that the spot which they designatedEmu hill was their 7th camp; that they inscribed the figure 7 ona stem of a large York gum on the north side of that hill, as wastheir practice at every camp. Thus there is no doubt thatNarimbeen is the Emu Hill of their designation.

July 25.—After breakfast wemoved the camp on to Comining; there being excellent feed for thehorses about that rock.

In the afternoon we all joined in a game of cricket, which MrSmith invited us to, and which, albeit the ball was made the samemorning by Mr Smith out of thongs of kangaroo-skin, and the batwas also chiselled by him out of a log of stinkwood, (which bythe bye, I think affords a valuable material for such purposes),we all enjoyed much.

July 26.—At 9 a.m. started withKowitch and a native of Comining called Harry, and three horses,for Mulyeen, after seeing Mr Robinson and the remainder of theparty start on Mr Smith's road track to Dangin, at which place,or at Bunmal, I am to rejoin them.

Having observed, in the hasty visit to Mulyeen, which I madeabout 15 months since, that (for this country), very remarkableelevation, boldness and fine form of the Mount Stirling Range (ofthe highest point of which the native name is Goondering.) andalso been informed by Mr Smith and Kowitch of the existance ofcaverns in a large rock called Karkabine a little to the east ofMulyeen, I resolved to make a slight detour to examine theseobjects.

Mr Smith accompanied me about two miles of the route to showme a large rock, which he thought somewhat remarkable. Here Ifound that three large narrow wedgelike portions, pointingtowards the centre and summit of the rock, had slid down avertical depth of probably some 50 or 60 feet. I doubt not thatthese masses had been cut off from connexion with the remainderof the rock by vertical fissures, and had thus been enabled tosink and slide somewhat away from the parent mass. There was someexcellent grass about this rock, as in fact there is all over MrSmith's run.

At about 5 p.m. we camped at a bare rock, native nameYarryarry, with a fine native well, and a fair quantity of grassabout it. Travelling distance 21 miles; direct distance 16 milesN.W. our native guide having taken us by a circuitous route, onthe plea of avoiding thickets. We passed many fine bare rocks,and a much greater quantity of grassy land, the grass being of amore poor and wiry character than I had expected.

July 27.—Started at 8 a.m., andat 5.30 p.m. camped at another bare patch of rock, distant about3 miles E. S. E. from the highest point of Mulyeen. Travellingdistance 25 miles; direct distance 23 miles W.

We passed to-day through or along the margin of a dozen lakes,all very shallow, with the exception of one, as to which ournative guide informed us that its present depth is up to hischin, and that it always retains water throughout the summer, butthat the water then becomes brackish.

All these lakes have white sand floors, and white sandymargins, notwithstanding which indications of the barrenness ofthe country, I observed a consider able quantity of samphireabout the margin of each.

A bare rock called Kokine, surrounded with a large extent ofpoor grassy land, and having on its western side a fine permanentspring which I should think would supply ample water for oneflock of sheep all the summer, combined with the samphire of thelake valley, would render this an eligible station for one or twoflocks of sheep.

Late in the afternoon we reached Karkabin, which certainly isone of the most remarkable and interesting rocks which I haveever seen in Western Australia.

It stands on the western side of a large bare sand-plain andis distant from the highest point of Mulyeen hill (Mount Stirlingof the map I suppose) about 5 miles E. S. E.

Its most singular and striking features, as a whole, are seenwith great advantage at a distance of a mile, or more, on theopposite slope of the sand-plain, towards the south east, and areas follows:—

1st. The nearly circular form of its horizontal section asviewed from the south-east.

2nd. The great enlargement of the horizontal section of thehill at the height of from 30 to 50 feet above the talus formedround its margin—a phenomenon which, I doubt not, marks avast pause in the gradual elevation of the rock above the surfaceof the ocean, during which the lower part of its periphery wasexposed, for a disproportionably long time, to the wearing actionof the waves and currents of a shoal sea, of which the latter,from the contour of the adjacent sea floor (which, as elsewhereobserved and on similar grounds, I believe to have been almostidentical with that of the existing surface) must have been verygreat.

3rd. The division of the portion of the rock visible above theenclosing talus, by a nearly horizontal cleaveage, due probablyto difference of rate of cooling, into vast circular trunks of athickness varying from 20 to 40 feet.

4th. The prior, or, at least, contemporaneous cleavage ofgigantic scales of the rock from the upper portion of its sides,and the lower portion of its sloping upper surface, whichoverhangs, as above observed, the lower portion of its visiblebase.

One of the vast scales of rock, which I do not think was byany means the largest, but was the most accessible, I roughlymeasured with my whip handle, and found its thickness to varyfrom four to nine feet, its mean horizontal length to be morethan 20 yards; and its average height to be about 15 yards. Ithad slid down a distance of about 63 or 70 yards, a large portionof its lower edge was imbedded in the surrounding talus; itsupper edges rested against the vertical side of the parent rock,between which and its interior concave surface was a great cavityfilled with angular blocks of rock of volumes varying from one toeight or ten cubic yards, probably detached from the scale in theact of sliding, and which the angular forms attest the fact that,at the epoch of their deposition in this chasm, the sea had sunkto a level at which its waves could not reach them.

Whether the long edges of these vast fragmentary sheaths orscales ever coincide with any of the planes of horizontalfissuring I had not time to examine, but it would be perfectlyeasy to define to inches the portions of the surface from whichmany of the scales have been derived, so perfectly do they stillretain, on their interior surfaces, their original form ofconcavity. In fact they are both concentric and coaxial with themass of the rock.

5th. On the northern side of this hill, which is morevertical, the upper portion of the rock does not overhang thelower, but it presents a number of wave-worn cavities, in whichthe vertical side of the rock has been eroded to a depth of 10 to12 feet which erosions, standing at a level of about 40 feetabove the plain of maximum erosion on the eastern face, mark, Ithink, another great pause in the progressive retirement of theocean from this part of the world.

Altogether a careful study of this very remarkable rock, inall its features, impressing one so strongly with the idea of avery limited topical elevatory force, operating very slowlythrough a long period of time, and therefore not involving eitherupheaving or tilting, has strongly confirmed the conclusion towhich the examination of innumerable other bare rocks in thisexpedition had previously conducted me, namely, that we mustascribe their developement to forces of a most limited topicalcharacter; consequently acting at a comparatively shallow depthunder the surface, such as to the aggregation within, andimmediately under, the granitic crust, of masses of rocks, whosesecular rate of contraction in cooling is much less than that ofthe adjacent granite.

It thus appears that to account fully for the existingcontour, and the elevation above the sea of this very singularand geologically interesting portion of the earth's surface, wemust conceive,

1st. That during the secular transition of the mother granitefrom a state of fluidity to its crystalline form, it passedthrough a viscous or semi fluid state, in which some of itsmineral constituents being quantitatively in excess over theremainder of them as to combination in crystallization under thecurrent conditions of temperature and pressure, the former werepartially aggregated into masses of comparatively limited volume,different in composition and crystalline combination, from thegreat mass of nearly homogeneous granite in which they floated;and these masses, having either a more rapid rate of cooling thanthat of the surrounding mass constituting the crust generally, orin the cooling, obeying a law of contraction slightly differentfrom that followed by the crust generally in the chronic processof contraction, whilst the granite generally was still in aviscous state, gradually pressed upon, and bulged out, thestratum of viscous granite floating upon them in numerouslocalities, but without at that time rupturing it.

2nd. That, subsequently to this epoch, and probably separatedtherefrom by a vast lapse of time, the entire country graduallyemerged from the ocean, not from any positive elevatory forceacting uniformly upon this large segment of the earth's surface;for that would not probably have left evidences of its action intiltings and extended fissures of the crust generally, (and suchare nowhere to be seen); but, as I have already ventured tosuggest, from the more rapid contraction of the earth's radius,in its secular cooling, in other portions of its mass, whichwould of course enable the sea to drain off from this segment ofits surface.

3rd. The fissuring of the masses of these rocks in planesdetermined by the distribution of its mineral constituents,originally horizontal, but supposed, as above, to be drawn out ofthe horizontal by these topical aggregations of matter obeying alaw of less rapid contraction in cooling both during the vastages in which they were submerged, and during the ages which haveelapsed since their emergence from the ocean.

If the above speculations be well founded, we may safely inferthat this extensive district, stretching from the meridian of 116deg. E, at least as far as 123d. E., and I am inclined to believevery much further, has enjoyed a permanence of form, a stabilityof contour of surface, such as is probably unequalled by anyother portion of the earth's surface.

July 28.—It raining hard all themorning, we remained in camp until 3 p.m. when we moved on to avery romantic and pretty looking little glen, abounding in finemountain oaks, close to the south side of the three principalmasses of bare rock which constitute the noble hill of Mulyeen,Direct distance 2½ miles W.N.W.

Spent the remainder of the afternoon in examining thesesplendid masses of primitive granite, and over-looking from thetop of Mulyeen the undulating and comparatively varied surface ofthe country stretching to the east and north, dotted withinnumerable round bald rocks, though of small masses incomparison with that of Mulyeen, and presenting altogether a morerugose surface, and a more broken and uneven horizon than I haveseen elsewhere in the course of the Expedition.

After sundown, feeling a sort of craving for society—forthe solitude of the wilderness, like affliction, makes kindred ofus all; and Kowitch so much prefers the society of Harry (wholistens with open month to his well-coloured narrative of theincidents of our journey, and especially to our gallant adventurewith the native woman, which the former is never tired ofrelating) that I get little of his society now, he and I startedto try to find Mr Parker's shepherd. After a walk of 4 or 5 milesby moonlight, we returned without attaining our object, the flockbeing removed to some spot in the neighbourhood which we couldnot discover.

July 29.—Started at 10 a.m.,without our native guide Harry, who, on the plea of being mendic.(Kowitch told me that he suffered from rheumatic pains in thefeet,) declined to accompany us any further, and at two milespassed Mr Parker's old sheep-station on the west side of Mulyeen,and travelling along an old sandalwood track, unintentionallypassed Kubbine on our left, and at 6 p.m. camped at about 6 mileson the west of that station; travelling distance 28 miles; havingridden fast the greater part of the afternoon; the countrytraversed consisting for the most part of very flat and slightlyinclined valleys abounding in sandalwood and jam trees, the soilsilicious and poor, but covered with a thin poor grass.

July 30.—Started at 10 a.m. andmaking across the bush about 6 miles in a S.S.W. direction, cameupon the Kubbine and Bunmull road, which we followed to thelatter place, where I hoped to find Mr Robinson and the remainderof the party encamped.

Reached Bunmull at 3 p.m. and found that Mr Robinson had notyet arrived. Travelling distance about 22 miles. It rained prettyheavily all last night, and in torrents all this day, so that wegot thoroughly drenched, and found the road for miles knee-deepin water; all the gullies running strongly strongly 2 feetdeep.

July 31.—Slept in Mr Herbert'shouse last night, he most kindly pressing me to do so, and thesaturated state of the ground not inviting us to sleep in thetents.

At 10 a.m. Messrs. Robinson, Edwards, and Hall with thehorses, came up, having camped about one mile on the east side ofMr Herbert's farm, and having experienced the same drenching rainyesterday which Kowitch and myself had suffered. After a shortdelay, we proceeded on our way to York, and about 3 p.m. reachedthe house of Mr P. Parker in that town, from which, 85 daysbefore, we had taken our departure on the Expedition nowconcluded.

The news of our arrival spread quickly through the smallpopulation of the town, and we were surrounded both with friendsglad to see us back safe and well, and, as many of my friendsassured me individually, looking, stronger, healthier, and fatterthan I have done for 15 years past, and with others anxious tohear an account of our adventures, and of the country which wehave traversed; and if my account of that has disappointedextravagant expectations entertained by some, as on the otherhand I know it is too favorable to be fully accepted by others,who can hope and believe no good thing in store for this colony,we had the pleasure of meeting a warm and hearty reception fromall, and I have moreover the satisfaction of holding a confidentbelief that, well within the life-time of many of the promptersand members of this Expedition, a stream of wealth will flow intothe town and district of York, derived from the pastoral andagricultural resources of the country which we have traversed andof whose very peculiar physical features I have endeavoured toconvey to the reader correct conceptions, sufficient to raisethat town and district to a position inferior to that occupied byno inland town or district of Australia, of which, as from thephysical causes which I have endeavoured to delineate must everbe the case of York and of all the country traversed by theExpedition, the prosperity may be based solely on agriculturaland pastoral resources.

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Printed and published by Stirling Sholl& Company, at the office of theInquirer and CommercialNews, St George's Terrace Perth, where all orders,advertisements, and communications are received.

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VIII.Appendix.

From: Proceedings of the Journal of theRoyal Geographical Society of London, 1864, Volume VIII, pp.45-46.

Narrative of an Exploring Expeditioninto the Interior of Western Australia, Eastward of the Districtof York, Commanded by Henry Maxwell Lefroy, Esq.(Superintendent of Convicts), from May to July, 1863.

The object of the expedition was todiscover new districts suitable for sheep-farming, the outmoststation at present being Smith's, about three days' journey onlyeast of York. It was found that primeval granite was the chiefformation for full 6° east of York, occasionally fissured butnowhere upheaved, except towards the western face of DarlingRange. This is covered in certain spots by sedimentary rocks,nowhere more than 100 feet in thickness. The general effect ofthe scenery consequent upon the (meridional) facture mentionedabove, is imposing, but their agricultural fertility is slight.From the Avon eastward to the limit of the drainage basin (118°30'e.) the country is flat, withabundance of wide shallow valleys. Leaving Smith's Station thecountry improves, the grass being good, with a sprinkling oftrees resembling the mimosa, and a species of dwarf pine. Animallife is so scarce, that in 155 miles the party only saw fourkangaroos, three emus, and no natives; though they one day cameupon a recent track of a solitary individual. On the numerouslakes passed, there were noticed only four ducks, and neithercockatoos, turkeys, nor parrots. As they proceeded inland theycame upon a chain of lakes bordered by samphire plains, atpresent 10 feet above the level of the stream, but probably lessin the rainy season. Beyond this a rise of 5 feet in the lakewaters would probably inundate a tract five miles wide. A carefulexamination led to the conclusion that there had been no overflowfor many years, possibly for centuries, and that for severalwinters the average depth of the water had not reached 2 feet.Some fine cypresses were visible here. If grazed closely bysheep, the young grass would be of the most nutritious quality,the depth of the rich alluvial soil being 15 feet, as evidencedby numerous natural surface-drains. Little or no wind wasexperienced throughout.

ThePresident said thePaper had been curtailed with reference to the geologicalphenomena of the region in question, which, as a geologist, healmost regretted. The idea of the author seemed to be, that therewas a mass of granite here, the nucleus, as it were, of theoriginal formation of the globe, which had remained undisturbedfor many ages. It was a phenomenon which ought to be discussed inthe Geological Society. The Paper was one of merit, written by agentleman who had passed a period of twenty years in the colony,and who had no doubt made accurate observations upon the country.He had also brought forward clear proofs that there were in this{Page 46} region large tractsof valuable alluvial land, which might be cultivated with greatprofit to the colony.

GeneralLefroy said,when his brother told us, with the experience of a settler ofmore than twenty years in West Australia, that the region he hadbeen the first to explore contained an extent of valuableagricultural and sheep-farming country unequalled in the colony,it opened up some good news to those who were well-disposedtowards that unfortunate colony. His brother dwelt very stronglyupon this point, particularly upon the extraordinary richness ofthe granite in those felspars which were the element ofagricultural fertility, wherever they were found. There was alsogreat interest in the view which he announced as to thepossibility of our having in this portion of the Australiancontinent access to the primeval nucleus of our planet, theprimeval granite over which there has never been any great depthof sedimentary deposit, which has never been disturbed byfissures or disrupted by intrusive rocks, and which is nearly inthe condition in which our globe would have been originally if ithad been a granite sphere cooling gradually. Mr. Lefroy wasdeeply impressed with the evidence presented in many directionsof the extreme antiquity of this region. We find in thevegetation of Australia the living representatives of the mostancient vegetation of the globe. It is the same with a portion ofits animal kingdom, and also with its representatives of thehuman race. For example, the only native Australians met with bythe expedition was one female and her child, both in a state ofabsolute nudity. The extraordinary sparseness of the human race,and the very peculiar conditions under which they exist there,point to a degree of primitive simplicity and antiquity which hethought would be found of considerable interest hereafter..Houseless through three-quarters of the year, perfectly naked inall weathers, and distributed over the country at a rate probablynot exceeding one family to forty or fifty square miles, it isdifficult to conceive of human beings in a deeper state ofdegradation. "Man," says Mr. Lefroy, in one of his letters, "ishere only another species of the mammalian fauna who has thesingular property of being both carnivorous and graminivorous,and is as unconscious of traditions, laws, moral principles, andsocial institutions as the scanty kangaroos or emus who share thecountry with him." The language of this female was unintelligibleto the native from York who accompanied the party. No kindnesscould overcome her terror, or induce her to accept what theyoffered her. Having no personal acquaintance with WesternAustralia, General Lefroy could not venture to say how far hisbrother's anticipations of a beneficial change in the vegetationof those great plains, to be brought about by cattle-feeding,would be realized; but it would appear that a moderateexpenditure of labour would remove the curse of aridity by savingthe abundant water which is sent by heaven, but, in the singularconformation of the surface, finds no valleys to drain it off, nobasins to collect it, and no depth of soil into which it cansubside. It seems to evaporate with the minimum of benefit to theearth. The expedition had suffered much, both from the want ofthis necessary and from the muddiness of what they could collect.On one occasion they were 36 hours without it; but,notwithstanding this, he was glad to say they lost only two orthree horses, and returned themselves all the better for theirhardships.

Map of H. M. Lefroy's Expedition in the Interior of WesternAustralia, May to July, 1863. Lefroy's route is outlined in red;the Dempsters' route of 1861 is shown in green.

National Library of Australia (Trove) Map rm4161.

Click on the map to enlarge it.

IX.Sources

Sources:The Inquirer andCommercial News, August-October, 1863, fromTrovewebsite.

1. Introduction: Wednesday 5 August 1863; article/69137532;

2. Lefroy Journal [1]: Wednesday 2 September 1863;article/69136427;

3. Lefroy Journal [2]: Wednesday 9 September 1863;article/69136295;

4. Lefroy Journal [3]: Wednesday 23 September 1863;article/66013708;

5. Lefroy Journal [4]: Wednesday 30 September 1863;article/66014613;

6. Lefroy Journal [5]: Wednesday 7 October 1863;article/66013697;

7. Lefroy Journal [6]: Wednesday 14 October 1863;article/66013715.

8. From Proceedings of the Journal of the Royal GeographicalSociety of London, 1864, Volume VIII, pp. 45-46. Read 25 January,1864.

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