had so frequently remarked the rapid and almost
instantaneous formation of such features in similar localities, that, I
confess, I did not doubt the meaning the natives intended to convey.

There are several facts illustrative of the structure and LAY, if I may
use the expression, of the interior unfolded to us, in consequence of the
farther knowledge Mr. Kennedy's exploration has given of that part
through which the Victoria flows, which strike myself, who have so deep
an interest in the subject, when they might, perhaps, escape the general
reader; I have therefore thought it right to advert to them for a moment.
He will not, however, have failed to observe, in the perusal of Mr.
Kennedy's Report, that excepting where small sandstone ranges turned it
to the westward, the tendency of the Victoria was to the SOUTH. The same
fact struck me in reference to the Murray river, as I proceeded down it
in 1830. I could not fail to observe its efforts to run away in a
southerly direction when not impeded by cliffs or sand-hills. This would
seem to indicate, that the dip of the continent is more directly to the
south than to the west. There is a line of rocky hills, that turn
Cooper's Creek to the latter point immediately to the south-west of the
grassy plains on which I supposed it took its rise. From that point its
general direction is to the westward for about eighty miles, when it
splits into two branches, the one flowing to the north-west, and
terminating in the extensive grassy plains described at page 39, Vol. II.
of the present work, the other passing to the westward and laying all the
country under water during the rainy season, which Mr. Brown and I
traversed on our journey to the north-west; the several creeks we
discovered on that occasion, being nothing more than ramifications of
Cooper's Creek, which thus, like all the other interior rivers of
Australia, expends itself by overflowing extensive levels; but instead of
forming marshes like the Lachlan, the Macquarie, and the Murrumbidgee,
terminates in large grassy plains, which are as wheat-fields to the
natives, since the grass-seed they collect from them appears to
constitute their principal food.

I have observed in the beginning of this work, that the impression on my
mind, before I commenced my recent expedition, was, that a great current
had passed southwards through the Gulf of Carpentaria which had been
split in two by some intervening obstacle, that one branch