John Murphy brought the flower of a yellow Hibiscus from Roper’s Peak:  it is certainly a new species.

Jan. 30.—­Last night clouds gathered into a thunder-storm to the south-west, but it passed by with very little rain:  heavy clouds hung round us, in every direction, but it seemed as if even their passage over the parched plains exhausted their moisture.  In the east and south-east a heavy thunder cloud, with incessant lightning, was seen, but so distant that we could not hear the thunder.  In the morning, loose clouds spread over the whole sky:  this was the first cloudy day we had experienced for the last three weeks.  Nature looks quite refreshed; the grass is so green, and the modest blue Ruellia so plentiful; whole fields of Crinum are in full blossom; and the Ironbark and flooded-gum with a denser and richer foliage than usual, afford us a most agreeable shade.  I wish I could sufficiently describe the loveliness of the morning just before and after sunrise:  the air so clear, so transparent; the sky slightly tinged with roseate hues, all nature so fresh, so calm, so cool.  If water were plentiful, the downs of Peak Range would be inferior to no country in the world.  Mr. Calvert collected a great number of Limnaea in the water-holes:  its shell is more compact than those we have before seen, and has a slight yellow line, marking probably the opening at a younger age.  Several insects of the genera Mantis and Truxalis were taken, but did not appear different from those we had previously collected.

Jan. 31.—­We had a thunder-storm from the west, and thunder clouds in all quarters; but, as usual, very little rain.  Mr. Gilbert returned from his exploratory ride, and stated that the plains extended far to the westward, and that they rose in that direction, forming a succession of terraces; and that another fine range of peaks, even more imposing than those of our Peak Range, reared their heads to the westward of the plains, converging towards the latter [Note at end of para.]; that all the creeks went down to the south and south-west; but that he found no water, except one fine lagoon about fifteen miles to the south-west, which was covered with ducks.  He had observed the sign of an anchor, or broad-arrow, cut into a tree with a stone tomahawk, and which he supposed had been done, either by a shipwrecked sailor, or by a runaway convict from Moreton Bay, when it was a penal settlement:  the neighbouring trees were variously marked by Blackfellows.

[Note.  Captain P. P. King, who surveyed this part of the coast, informs me that the coast hills as seen from the sea, are generally of peaked form, particularly the remarkable elevation of Mount Funnel, at the back of Broad Sound—­which is apparently not connected with the neighbouring ranges—­and also that of Double Mount, which is visible from a distance of 60 miles.  The Cumberland Islands also, which front the coast in the same vicinity, are of peaked shape, and one, Mount Dryander, on the