ng my
absence. I found that these occurred on the lower side of sandstone
strata, and that they had become denuded by the decomposition of
sandstone underneath. We were to leave this camp next morning. The men
were on very reduced rations, and I was apprehensive that we might be
disappointed in our search for water in many places where we had before
encamped and found it. In the afternoon, the sky became suddenly
overcast, distant thunder was heard; and the southern portion of the
heavens, over the country to which we were about to return, was evidently
discharging some heavy rain there. At twilight, the rain commenced to
fall heavily at our camp, and continued to do so during four hours. Such
a supply came most opportunely for us, and, although I could not be so
vain as to suppose that the thunder rolled only for our benefit alone, I
felt as thankful as though it had. This day I saw on the cavernous hill
the woolly ACTINOTUS HELIANTHI, one of the most singular of umbelliferous
plants; and, on descending to the base, a white variety of the COMESPERMA
SYLVESTRIS, with smooth branches: unlike the kind observed in September,
it did not grow above one foot high. A small shrub grew on the rocks, a
pretty little Calytrix, near C. MICROPHYLLA A Cunn. (from Port Essington
and Melville Island); but the branches, with their leaves, are more
stout, and the bracts more obtuse. Sir W. Hooker supposes it to be a new
species. We here found this day a woolly-leaved plant, with long
branching panicles of brilliantly blue flowers, which Professor de Vriese
has ascertained to be a new genus of the natural order of Goodeniads, and
which he calls LINSCHOTENIA DISCOLOR.[*] Thermometer, meter, at sunrise,
60 deg.; at noon, 94 deg.; at 4 P. M., 76 deg.; at 9, 64 deg.;--with wet bulb, 64 deg..

[* LINSCHOTENIA DE VRIESE. Calyx superus, limbo obsoleto. Corollae
quinquefidae tubo hine fisso, lobis majoribus margine utroque auriculato-
crispis, alatisve, duobus minoribus lanceolatis, interne appendice
proprio cuculliformi instructis. Antherae imberbes, cohaerentes.
Filamenta libera, quandoque subflexuosa. Ovarium uniovulatum; stylus
inflexus; stigmatis indusium ore nudum; semen in nuce solitarium.

Genus dicatum Jano Huigenio Linschotenio, geographo, navarcho,
itineratori seculi XVI., qui historiae naturalis, imprimis vero
geographiae et rei nauticae progressui eximie profuit. Linschotenia
Dampierae proxime habitu et plurimis cum floris, tum habit