of three feet; at 3.0 struck a small creek trending east-north-east with a few small pools of water in the channel; in following down the creek in search of a sufficient supply of water for the horses, we passed some blacks sitting at a fire near the creek; at 3.30 came to a pool sufficient for the supply of the whole party, below which the channel was dry; returning to the pool we met the blacks following our tracks, but, observing us, they ran away, and on being followed hid themselves; having unsaddled, we commenced our dinner and soon saw the blacks watching us from their hiding places, and after some time spent in making signs, they were induced to approach, the oldest of the party feigning to weep bitterly till they got close to us, when we commenced an attempt at conversation, and they appeared to recognise some few words of the language of the Victoria River.  Their spears were formed of reeds with large heads of white sandstone, and also with three wooden points for fishing.  They were circumcised and had their front teeth remaining; at 5.0 steered to the west-north-west for one hour, and bivouacked to secure ourselves from an attack during the night.

11th July.

At 6.30 a.m., resumed our route towards the camp, and reached it about 1.0 p.m., without observing anything of farther remark.

Latitude by a2 Centauri 15 degrees 2 minutes 49 seconds.

Absence of watercourses.

12th July.

The grass near the camp having been burnt off, the horses had scattered very much, and could not be collected and saddled before 10.0 a.m., when we followed our track of yesterday and reached the pool of water at sunset.  The country was so level, although we were crossing the watershed between the north-west coast and the Gulf of Carpentaria, that the aneroid only varied from 29.55 to 29.62, and even of this change the greater part was caused by alteration of the temperature.  The geological character of this portion of the country differs slightly from that of the Victoria River.  The upper stratum is a bed of ironstone conglomerate about twenty feet thick, this rests on sandstone, the upper part of which is highly ferruginous, then passes away into a variegated sandstone imperfectly stratified, changing into a hard siliceous sandstone which is white and breaks with a conchoidal fracture; this rests on a hard cherty sandstone similar to that of the Victoria River.  In this rock many depressions occur, which is apparently caused by the roofs of caverns falling in and there are usually deep fissures in the rock at the bottom of these hollows, in which all the water that drains into them is absorbed; in some places the sandstone resting on the limestone has sunk many feet below the general level, with areas varying from one to ten acres, sometimes sloping towards a centre ten to thirty feet below the plain, and in other spots with abrupt rocky banks five to eight feet high and a perfectly level bottom.  The level