10th October.

While breakfast was preparing, Mr. Burges and myself examined the right
bank of the river, and after a short search, found a practicable ascent
to the top of the cliffs, and having cleared a way through the thicket of
melaleuca on the bank of the river, returned to breakfast. At 7.50 a.m.
commenced ascending, and at 8.30 reached the summit of the rocky hills,
and steering about south-east through a succession of thickets, rocks,
yawning chasms, sand-hills, and scrub, we attained to a fine grassy flat
at 12.30 p.m. The bed of the river here quite changed its character, the
sandstones giving place to granite gneiss, with dark trap dykes
intersecting it in a northerly and southerly direction, the dip of the
strata being to the west at a very high angle, at times almost
perpendicular.

A DEPOT CAMP. EXPLORE THE UPPER MURCHISON.

11th October.

As this appeared to be a good spot for the formation of a depot, while we
examined the upper portion of the Murchison, I proceeded up the river in
company with Mr. Burges, leaving the rest of the party to guard the camp
and attend to the horses. After one hour's ride we came on our track
where we crossed the river on the 25th September, the general course of
the stream-bed being east-north-east, its channel averaging 100 yards in
width, full of rocks, small trees, and sandbanks, with many shallow
brackish pools of water, with the exception of one, which was both wide
and deep, where we halted for two hours to rest the horses; few of the
pools seemed likely to last through the heat of summer. At 1.0 p.m. we