pulation, and the
cause of this undoubtedly must have been the great facilities for
procuring food in so rich a soil.

MOUNT VICTORIA AND MOUNT ALBERT.

We now came to two very remarkable hills bearing north-east of us and
distant about three miles, which I have named Mount Victoria and Mount
Albert. They lay about one mile apart, and were of the form shown in
Illustration 2, which will give a good idea of the flat-topped hills
hereabouts.

THE HUTT RIVER.

The river still ran in a deep wooded valley bordered by rich flats, high
hills lying both to the right and left of our line of route. Two miles
and a half more on a course of 135 degrees brought us out on some
gravelly barren plains, and just before coming to these, and in passing
through a scrub, we raised a flight of white cockatoos, of a species new
to me. One of the men got an ineffectual shot at them.

FIRST HILLS OF THE SOUTHERN IRONSTONE FORMATION.

After traversing these plains for two miles in a south-east direction we
came upon a valley through which flowed a branch of the river we had this
day discovered, running in a bed of fifty yards across, and having in its
centre a rapid stream falling in small cascades; it appeared at times
subject to extensive inundations, and here its course was through barren
plains covered with rocks piled up in strange fantastic masses, and the
bed was composed of that kind of red sandstone which at Perth is called
ironstone; this being the farthest point north at which I have remarked
it.

A number of grass-trees (Xanthorrhoea) grew near the spot where we had
halted; they appeared unhealthy and stunted, but indeed I suspect they
are a new and undescribed variety. Being desirous of procuring anything I
could for the men to eat I had the tops of some of these trees cut off
and boiled, they were however still so hard that to chew them was
impossible, and it was evident that we had not yet reached a parallel of
latitude calculated to produce tender-topped grass trees.

I knew our latitude and position this night exactly, as I had seen Mount
Naturaliste of the French in the course of the day. There could be no
doubt whatever that we were in a very remarkable district, for we stood
upon the point where the geological formations of the north-western and
south-western portions of the continent were associated together, and the
flora of which was so made up of those of both that it was impossible to
tell which predominated. T