light ridges of "devil-devil" land are covered with
quartz pebbles, and the hills and bed of the river, are of sandstone
formation.

A yellow, and a pink Hibiscus, were frequent along the river.

My calculations gave the longitude of 148 degrees 56 minutes for Skull
Creek; my bearings however make it more to the westward; its latitude was
supposed to be 21 degrees 42 minutes: the cloudy nights prevented my
taking any observation.

March 5.--I sent Mr. Gilbert and Charley up the river, which, according
to Mr. Roper's account, came through a narrow mountain gully, the passage
of which was very much obstructed by tea-trees. They passed the mountain
gorge, and, in about eight miles north, came to the heads of the Isaacs,
and to those of another system of waters, which collected in a creek that
flowed considerably to the westward. The range through which the Isaacs
passes is composed of sandstone, and strikes from north-west to
south-east. In its rocky caves, wallabies, with long smooth tails, had
been seen by Brown; they were quite new to him, and, as he expressed
himself, "looked more like monkeys than like wallabies." Mr. Gilbert and
Charley came on two flocks of emus, and killed two young ones; and
Charley and John Murphy hunted down another; Charley fell, however, with
his horse, and broke a double-barrelled gun, which was a very serious
loss to us, and the more so, as he had had the misfortune to break a
single-barrelled one before this.

The weather continued showery; loose scud passed over from the east and
south-east, with occasional breaks of hot sunshine. The Corypha palm is
frequent under the range; the Ebenaceous tree, with compound pinnate
leaves and unequilateral leaflets, is of a middle size, about thirty feet
high, with a shady and rather spreading crown.

We have travelled about seventy miles along the Isaacs. If we consider
the extent of its Bastard-box and narrow-leaved Ironbark flats, and the
silver-leaved Ironbark ridges on its left bank, and the fine open country
between the two ranges through which it breaks, we shall not probably
find a country better adapted for pastoral pursuits. There was a great
want of surface water at the season we passed through it; and which we
afterwards found was a remarkably dry one all over the colony: the wells
of the natives, however, and the luxuriant growth of reeds in many parts
of the river, showed that even shallow wells would give a large supply to
the squatt