o the south-east; the banks
were high and cut by deep gullies. At 12.30 p.m. the hills receded, and
we entered some fine flats. Here I picked up a fragment of the
shoulder-bone of a bullock, and observed several trees that had been cut
with iron axes; and as the latitude corresponds with that of Dr.
Leichhardt's camp of the 26th April, 1845, the bone doubtless belonged to
the bullock he killed at this place. At 1.5 camped on the bank of the
river. The Moreton-Bay ash, poplar gum, and a rough-barked gum-tree with
very green leaves, were added to the ironbark, bloodwood, and other
eucalypti which constituted the forest, while casuarina and Melaleuca
leucodendron grow in the beds of the larger watercourses. The channel of
the river is about 150 yards, with a small stream winding along the sandy
bed; much of the running water is due to the late rain, but it is evident
from the character of the vegetation that it continues to run throughout
the dry season.

Latitude by a Cygni 19 degrees 37 seconds.

18th October.

Continued our route at 6.25 a.m., steering nearly east till 8.30, when
the river turned to the north round a range of sandstone hills, crossing
which, reached the river again at 10.5 flowing south, with fine
openly-timbered flats on the banks; steering south till 1.0 p.m., camped
on the bank of the river just below a ridge of slate rock which crossed
the channel. From the hills, at 9.0, we saw a fine valley joining that of
the Burdekin from the east; it was bounded by a steep range to the south,
which terminated two miles from the river. South-west of our position
were several flat-topped hills, which appeared to be a continuation of
the range crossed yesterday. To the south only a few distant hills were
visible, the view being obstructed by trees. The flats on the banks of
the river are well grassed and openly timbered with ironbark, Moreton-Bay
ash, bloodwood, and poplar gum; the soil varying from a soft brown loam
into which our horses sank deeply, to a firm black or brown clay loam;
the ranges were stony and thinly grassed; the timber box and ironbark.
The geological features consist of a fine-grained sandstone
interstratified with slate and coarse conglomerates. The sandstone is
intersected in every direction with veins of quartz, which do not appear
to enter the slate. The dip of the strata is nearly vertical, the strike
north and south. The whole appear to have been much disturbed and
altered; neither gr