ge to six feet
per mile; this, in a country subject to the sudden fall of almost
tropical rains, is what gives rise to the destructive inundations already
described.

CLIMATE.

Of the climate and seasons so little is at present known that, allowing
all other difficulties to have been overcome, it would be very hazardous
to risk flocks and herds beyond the head of the Murchison until the
country has again been visited at a different period of the year, as it
is probably that it has as yet only been seen under the most favourable
conditions.

The fluctuations of the temperature are occasionally considerable; in the
middle of June it some days amounted to 46 degrees in six
hours--registering, at 7 a.m., 36 degrees, and at 1 p.m., 82 degrees; ice
having been seen as far north as latitude 24 degrees 30 minutes.

The prevailing winds during the period of inundation appear to have been
from the south-east, as most of the trees blown down while the soil was
in a state of saturation lay with their tops to the north-west. In May
and June the winds ranged between north-east and south-east.

Of the regularity of the return of the summer rains it is at present
difficult to form a decided opinion; but, as far as observation would
admit, I am inclined to think they cannot be relied on with any degree of
certainty, to the southward of the 25th degree of latitude. The period at
which they fall being about January and February, it is a significant
fact that the grasses found buried beneath the mud during these months
had generally attained only to nearly half their growth.

AREA OF AVAILABLE COUNTRY.

With regard to the quantity and distribution of the available lands, it
will only be necessary to observe that, with the exception of 30,000 or
40,000 acres at the mouth of the Gascoyne, there is no land worth
occupying for many years to come to the west of the Lyons River; the
amount of land on this river has already been estimated at nearly 300
square miles, while on the Upper Gascoyne and its tributaries there is
probably double that quantity; this, with the lands on the Murchison near
Mount Hale, would make a total of about a million of acres.

A very important circumstance in connection with this district is the
total absence, so far as we were able to observe, of any of the varieties
of gastrolobium or euphorbia, which constitute the poisonous plants so
fatal to cattle and sheep in other parts of the colony.

The means of a