from Camp 55. From here a course of west half south took us in a
distance of about twenty miles to Cooper's Creek, which we first
struck in latitude 27 degrees 49 minutes south, longitude 142
degrees 20 minutes east. The land through which we passed on the
11th was so low and wooded as to prevent me from seeing the
direction of the ranges; the first five or six miles was tolerably
open. We then came to a box forest, where the soil was loose and
earthy, similar to polygonum ground; there were in every direction
signs of heavy floods and frequent inundations. We crossed several
small watercourses, in one of which there was a hole of rather
creamy water, at which we halted for an hour. From the waterhole we
quite unexpectedly obtained a rather fine fish, about eight inches
long, of the same description as the young ones we had found in
Brahe's Creek.

Cooper's Creek.--At the point at which we first struck Cooper's
Creek it was rocky, sandy, and dry; but about half a mile further
down we came to some good waterholes, where the bed of the creek
was very boggy, and the banks richly grassed with kangaroo and
other grasses. The general course is a little north of west, but it
winds about very much between high sand hills. The waterholes are
not large, but deep, and well shaded, both by the steep banks and
the numerous box trees surrounding them. The logs and bushes high
upon the forks of the trees, tell of the destructive floods to
which this part of the country has been subjected, and that at no
very distant period, as may be seen by the flood marks on trees of
not more than five or six years' growth.

From Camp 57 we traced the creek in a west-north-westerly direction
about six miles. It then runs out among the sand hills, the water