many bold and picturesque outlines and detached summits, terminating in
abrupt and almost precipitous faces; to this we gave the name of the
Kennedy Range, in honour of our present Governor.

To the south a detached mass of broken sandstone hills gradually falls
away in the distance, apparently into a barren scrub similar to those on
the banks of the lower Murchison, while to the west lay before us an
extensive plain, unbroken by a single object save a few long ridges of
red drift sand, clothed with a stunted scrub of melaleuca and acacia. The
bottom of the gorge we found to be 480 feet above the sea.

13th May.

From this morning to noon of the 15th the country passed over was similar
to that first described, the sand ridges running north-west and
south-east at about a quarter of a mile apart; the river keeping a
general course of west-north-west, its channel deepening to sixty feet,
and maintaining an average width of 400 yards. Grass was only to be found
in small patches along the margin of the river; the accumulated waters of
the late inundations having been confined to one channel, had risen to
the height of forty-eight feet, carrying away many of the largest timber
trees, as also much of the soil from the banks, leaving a scene of
devastation exceeding anything of the kind I had hitherto witnessed.

A small description of Spanish reed was here first observed to grow on
the margin of the pools. Deep muddy creeks, having only short courses,
were very numerous, rendering travelling both tedious and intricate.

From noon of the 15th the country gradually opened out to a
thinly-grassed plain of light alluvial soil, atriplex bushes and acacia
widely scattered forming almost the entire vegetation; the ground, with
the exception of the bed of the river, being parched and dry, no rain
having fallen during the summer to the west of the Lyons River, in
longitude 115 degrees 30 minutes east.

16th May.

Being Sunday, we only moved four miles lower down the river for better
feed, the channel widening out to 600 yards.

17th May.

Early to-day the river began to throw off numerous channels to the north
and south, shedding, when in a flood, a considerable amount of water over
the adjoining plains, clothing the country in the garb of spring, the
grass growing luxuriantly along the numerous channels, atriplex and other
low bushes generally covering the plain, the lowest levels of which were
extensively covered with fie