there was water in it below us.

In the mean time Mr. Browne and I pushed on for the ranges, which
presented a very singular appearance as we surveyed them from the lagoon.

The geological formation of these hills was perfectly new, for they were
now composed almost exclusively of indurated or compact quartz. The hills
themselves no longer presented the character of ranges, properly so
called, but were a group of flat-topped hills, similar to those figured
by Flinders, King, and other navigators. Some were altogether detached
from the main group, not more than two-thirds of a mile in length, with
less than a third of that breadth, and an elevation of between three and
four hundred feet. These detached hills were perfectly level at the top,
and their sides declined at an angle of 54 degrees. The main group as we
now saw it appeared to consist of a number of projecting points,
connected by semicircular sweeps of greater or less depth. There was no
vegetation on the sides either of the detached hills or of the projecting
points, but they consisted of a compact white quartz, that had been split
by solar heat into innumerable fragments in the form of parallelograms.
Vast heaps of these laid at the base of the hills, and resembled the
ruins of a town, the edifices of which had been shaken to pieces by an
earthquake, and on a closer examination it appeared to me that a portion
of the rock thus scaled off periodically. We approached these hills by a
gradual ascent, over ground exceedingly stony in places; but as we neared
them it became less so, the soil being a decomposition of the geological
structure of the hills. It was covered with a long kind of grass in
tufts, but growing closer together than usual. There were bare patches of
fine blistered soil, that had as it were been raised into small hillocks,
and on these, rounded particles, or stools, if I may so call them, of
gypsum rested, oval or round, but varying in diameter from three to ten
inches or more. These stools were perfectly flat and transparent, the
upper surface smooth, but in the centre of the under surface a pointed
projection, like that in a bull's eye in window glass was buried in the
ground, as if the gypsum was in process of formation.

On leaving the lagoon, we crossed the creek, riding on a north-east
course over stony plains, and at five miles struck another creek in which
we found a good supply of water, coming direct from the hills, and
continuing to