ent
to the top of the cliffs, and having cleared a way through the thicket of
melaleuca on the bank of the river, returned to breakfast. At 7.50 a.m.
commenced ascending, and at 8.30 reached the summit of the rocky hills,
and steering about south-east through a succession of thickets, rocks,
yawning chasms, sand-hills, and scrub, we attained to a fine grassy flat
at 12.30 p.m. The bed of the river here quite changed its character, the
sandstones giving place to granite gneiss, with dark trap dykes
intersecting it in a northerly and southerly direction, the dip of the
strata being to the west at a very high angle, at times almost
perpendicular.

A DEPOT CAMP. EXPLORE THE UPPER MURCHISON.

11th October.

As this appeared to be a good spot for the formation of a depot, while we
examined the upper portion of the Murchison, I proceeded up the river in
company with Mr. Burges, leaving the rest of the party to guard the camp
and attend to the horses. After one hour's ride we came on our track
where we crossed the river on the 25th September, the general course of
the stream-bed being east-north-east, its channel averaging 100 yards in
width, full of rocks, small trees, and sandbanks, with many shallow
brackish pools of water, with the exception of one, which was both wide
and deep, where we halted for two hours to rest the horses; few of the
pools seemed likely to last through the heat of summer. At 1.0 p.m. we
came on a party of natives, five of whom came up to us, following us for
some distance. As they seemed to prefer mimicking our attempts to speak
the York dialect to using their own, we could not obtain much
information; they carried kylies and dowaks, but had left their spears
and shields with the rest of their party, who did not make their
appearance. At 3.0 passed several ridges of red sandstone rocks, the
strata dipping to the east-north-east at an angle of from 20 to 60
degrees. The granite rock entirely disappearing, the country became quite
level, and covered with one universal thicket of acacia and cypress,
except the very slight depression which formed a shallow valley about
three miles wide, through which the river runs in a deep channel from 80
to 100 yards wide in ordinary seasons, but when in flood must exceed 300
yards, and the rise of the water, judging from the rubbish drifted up in
former years, must exceed thirty feet. The valleys did not seem to be
more than 100 feet below the general surface of the